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Chalcedon in Context

Church Councils 400-700

Translated Texts for Historians, Contexts 1

TRANSLATED TEXTS FOR HISTORIANS, CONTEXTS

TTH Contexts is a new occasional series developing the work of Liver¬
pool University Press’s distinguished Translated Texts for Historians.
TTH provides scholarly translations, with introduction and notes, of
sources for all aspects of political, social, cultural and intellectual history
for the period 300-800. TTC locates these texts in the framework of the
latest scholarly debate with edited papers by leading researchers who
have met to discuss problems and prospects. TTC volumes present wide-
ranging analyses of texts published by TTH, providing an essential
resource for scholars and students working on the formative period of
Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.

Editors

Gillian Clark, University of Bristol
Mark Humphries, University of Swansea
Mary Whitby, University of Oxford

Chalcedon in Context

Church Councils 400-700

Edited by

RICHARD PRICE and MARY WHITBY

Liverpool

University

Press

First published 2009 by
Liverpool University Press
4 Cambridge Street
Liverpool
L69 7ZU

This paperback edition published 2011

The authors’ rights have been asserted by them in accordance
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abbreviations vi

List of Contributors viii

Introduction 1

Averil Cameron

The Council of Chalcedon and the Definition of Christian Tradition 7
David M. Gwynn

‘Reading’ the First Council of Ephesus (431) 27

Thomas Graumann

The Syriac Acts of the Second Council of Ephesus (449) 45

Fergus Millar

The Council of Chalcedon (451): A Narrative 70

Richard Price

Truth, Omission, and Fiction in the Acts of Chalcedon 92

Richard Price

Why Did the Syrians reject the Council of Chalcedon? 107

Andrew Louth

The Second Council of Constantinople (553) and

the Malleable Past 117

Richard Price

The Lateran Council of 649 as an Ecumenical Council 133

Catherine Cubitt

The Quinisext Council (692) as a Continuation of Chalcedon 148
Judith Herrin

Acclamations at the Council of Chalcedon 169

Charlotte Roueche

An Unholy Crew? Bishops Behaving Badly at Church Councils 178
Michael Whitby

Index

197

ABBREVIATIONS

ABAW.PH

ABAW.PPH

ACO

ACO II

AHC

Byz

ByzF

ByzZ

CCSL

CRAI

DOB

DTC

ep./epp.

EThL

FilMed

GCS

GOTR

GRBS

IMylasa

JOB

JRS

ITS

MGH

OCP

OGIS

RBen

RHE

Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der

Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Abteilung

Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der

Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-philologische und

Historische Klasse

Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum

Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, Series Secunda

Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum

Byzantion

Byzantinische Forschungen

Byzantinische Zeitschrift

Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina

Comptes rendus des seances de I’Academie des

Inscriptions et Belles Lettres

Dumbarton Oaks Papers

Dictionnaire de theologie catholique

epistola/epistolae

Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses
Filologia Mediolatina

Die griechischen christlichen Scriftsteller der ersten drei
Jahrhunderte

Greek Orthodox Theological Review
Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies
Die Inschriften von Mylasa
Jahrbuch der osterreichischen Byzantinistik
Journal of Roman Studies
Journal of Theological Studies
Monumenta Germaniae Historica
Neue Folge

Orientalia Christiana Periodica

Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae

Patrologia Graeca

Patrologia Latina

Revue benMictine

Revue d’histoire ecclesiastique

ABBREVIATIONS

RThL

SBAW.PH

Revue theologique de Louvain

Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften,

StP

TTH

ZKG

Philosophisch-historische Abteilung

Sources Chretiennes

Studia Patristica

Translated Texts for Historians

Texte und Untersuchungen

Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Averil Cameron is Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine History at
the University of Oxford and Warden of Keble College, Oxford.

Catherine Cubitt is Senior Lecturer in Early Medieval History in the
Department of History, University of York.

Thomas Graumann is Senior Lecturer in Early Church History in the
Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge.

David Gwynn is Lecturer in Ancient and Late Antique History at Royal
Holloway, University of London.

Judith Herrin is Professor Emerita and Senior Research Fellow in
Byzantine Studies at King’s College London.

Andrew Louth is Professor of Patristic and Byzantine Studies at the
University of Durham.

Fergus Millar is Emeritus Professor of Ancient History and a member
of the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Unit at the Oriental Institute, Oxford.

Richard Price is Senior Lecturer in the History of Christianity at
Heythrop College, University of London.

Charlotte Roueche is Professor of Classical and Byzantine Greek at
King’s College, London.

Michael Whitby is Professor of Classics and Ancient History, University
of Warwick.

INTRODUCTION

Averil Cameron

The publication in three volumes in the series Translated Texts for
Historians of a complete English translation with notes of the materials
relating to the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) by Richard Price and
Michael Gaddis^ is a major event. For the first time this priceless dossier
becomes readily accessible, and in English translation. This means that
professional historians, theologians and students alike can have to hand
in convenient form a collection of material which is of the utmost impor¬
tance for understanding both the history of the Church and the history
of late antiquity. Its publication coincides with the appearance of other
works by historians dealing with church councils, in particular Fergus
Millar’s Sather Lectures, published in 2006, and related articles by him.^
Several recent works on the role of bishops in late antiquity, as well as
many publications on the separation of the miaphysites, or non-Chal-
cedonians, in the sixth century, and on questions of orthodoxy and
heresy, also underline the centrality of the negotiations and rivalries

1 Richard Price and Michael Gaddis, The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, translated
with an introduction and notes, TTH 45, 3 vols. (Liverpool University Press, 2005).

2 Fergus Millar, A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II (408-
450) (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2006) and the articles listed on p. 69 below; see also
Ramsay MacMullen, Voting about God in Early Church Councils (New Haven, 2006);
Peter Norton, Episcopal Elections 250-600: Hierarchy and Popular Will in Late
Antiquity (Oxford, 2007). Averil Cameron and S.G. Hall, Eusebius, Life of Constan¬
tine (Oxford, 1999) was the first English translation since the nineteenth century of
the Vita Constantini, containing Eusebius’ version of the Council of Nicaea, and has
a detailed historical commentary; it has been followed by several other translations
into different languages. The great series of editions of the acts of the ecumenical
councils initiated by Eduard Schwartz, the Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, has in
recent years been continued by the very important work of Rudolf Riedinger on the
Lateran Synod of AD 649 and the Sixth Council of AD 680-1; see Riedinger, Kleine
Schriften zu den Konzilakten des 7. Jahrhunderts (Turnhout, 1998). The appearance,
at the same time as this volume, of an English translation by Richard Price of the
materials relating to the Fifth Council (Constantinople II) of AD 553 (TTH 51) will
be a further important contribution to the topic, as well as to the growing revisionist
literature on the reign of Justinian.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

surrounding the ‘ecumenical’ councils of the fourth century and later2
The Church began from a very early date to resolve internal disagree¬
ments by means of meetings whose proceedings were in one way or
another recorded; the earliest example is of course the debate within the
Church of Jerusalem in the first century. In the context of a growing new
religion which felt its mission to be universal, once the decision to pros¬
elytize among the gentiles had been made, local meetings (‘synods’)
were ways of establishing communion, imposing order and designating
hierarchy. A precedent was set in the early fourth century when the
Council of Elvira issued a set of canons aimed at regulating Christian
behaviour, but as Constantine discovered, local synods did not prevent
the development of wide discrepancies of practice and indeed belief. His
first intervention in church affairs resulted in a meeting being called in
Rome, and then a council being convened at Arles in AD 314, but the
Council of Nicaea held under his aegis in AD 325 was the first such
meeting of bishops which claimed to be universal; this was so even
though the balance of participants was anything but even between east
and west, and a myth quickly grew up according to which the number of
those attending matched that of the servants of Abraham (318) as
reported in Genesis 14:14. The stakes were immediately raised: the
emperor himself called the council, put state resources into its arrange¬
ments, and clearly intended it to settle the awkward fact that the Church
which he had decided to support was divided, and potentially seriously
so. Present at the council but not yet a bishop was Athanasius, who was
himself exiled in AD 336 and who was to appeal again and again in a
series of tendentious and partisan writings to the Council of Nicaea as
the cornerstone of orthodox faith. Eusebius of Caesarea, the contem¬
porary who was its first historian, has left for reasons of his own an
account which omits all the highly contentious issues and yet which
makes it clear once and for all how crucially important it and its succes¬
sors would be in the future.'^

3 See Claudia Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leader¬
ship in an Age of Transition (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2005). On the miaphysites
see, for example, Lucas van Rompay, ‘Society and community in the Christian East’,
in Michael Maas, ed.. The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian (Cambridge,
2005), 239-66.

4 Eusebius, Life of Constantine III.4—22. For Athanasius see D.M. Gwynn, The Euse-
bians. The Polemic of Athanasius of Alexandria and the Construction of the Arian
Controversy (Oxford, 2007).

INTRODUCTION

Although the Council of Nicaea was never revoked, what had perhaps
seemed a simple and even straightforward matter of achieving consensus
and moving forward from an agreed position turned out over the next
centuries to be a source of enormous division and struggle. Far from
ending the matter, the Christological formulae in the statement of faith
agreed at Nicaea and confirmed by the First Council of Constantinople
in AD 381 were bitterly fought over by the next generations.^ In the west,
the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451 has been felt to have settled the
profile of catholic Christianity so firmly that in many quarters the
patristic period is still seen as ending then. But in the east, many felt that
Chalcedon had gone too far, and the valiant efforts of later emperors
were not sufficient to prevent the non-Chalcedonians from forming their
own churches.® By the seventh century despairing emperors resorted to
simply ordering an end to theological argument, naturally without
success. The disputes and shifting alignments before, during and after
the ecumenical councils were the nearest thing to politics in this period.
They involved not only the Church and its bishops but also the political
elite, the emperors, monks and indeed also Christians in the street who
at times resorted to actual violence in the expression of their rivalries
and enthusiasms.^

As the papers in this volume demonstrate, the circumstances
surrounding these councils - their preliminaries, organization, atten¬
dance, documentation and eventual reporting in official or unofficial
documents - are currently a major subject of study. In all cases the crit¬
ical editing and indeed the translation of the surviving records are
fundamental. Fergus Millar has recently shown the degree to which
historians of the Council of Chalcedon and the fifth century have still to
draw on all the riches that the documentary evidence contains; the
evidence from the Council of Ephesus for the religious policy of Theo¬
dosius II and the role played by his sister Pulcheria has also received
considerable attention lately, though some basic questions remain

5 See, for example, Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-
Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford, 2004).

6 The extent of Justinian’s investment in achieving some kind of ecclesiastical unity is
vividly revealed in the papers edited by Celia Chazelle and Catherine Cubitt, The
Crisis of the Oikumene: The Three Chapters and the Failed Quest for Unity in the Sixth-
Century Mediterranean (Turnhout, 2007).

7 See the paper by Michael Whitby below, with Michael Gaddis, There is no Crime for
those who have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire (Berkeley
and Los Angeles, 2005).

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

disputed.® Problems about the reliability of some council acts as a record
of the actual proceedings have been explored, notably in relation to
Ephesus I (see Thomas Graumann’s essay in this volume) and the
Lateran Synod of AD 649, where Rudolf Riedinger’s work has revealed
the editorial role of Maximus the Confessor and the Greek monks in his
entourage. Similarly the materials from the Sixth and Seventh Councils
in AD 680-81 and 787 (though the latter still awaits its critical edition)
are of extraordinary interest, not only for the actual debates but also for
their lists of bishops attending, and for the precautions taken to guard
against the citation of forged documents and authorities - which is at the
same time clear evidence of the extent to which the practice was taking
place.^ By focusing on one manuscript containing one of the many flori-
legia drawn up for use in the ecclesiastical battles which surrounded the
later councils in the series, Alexander Alexakis has strikingly revealed
the extent of manipulation as well as the amount of effort and energy
that went into their preparation and into the arguments that surrounded
them.“ At one level, indeed, the classic problem of Byzantine icono-
clasm can be seen to depend in important ways on a veritable war of
texts.

It would be impossible to overestimate the importance of the
ecumenical councils of late antiquity. Once set on this road, the complex¬
ities of procedure inevitably increased, and so did the determination of
the various groups and individuals to secure their desired outcome.
Insofar as what was aimed at was a verbal definition of the faith, with all
the problems such an attempt implies, it has been argued that the
endeavour was a fatal step in the wrong direction: there is more to reli¬
gion and more to Christianity than forms of words, and the search for
verbal definition was doomed to failure. Indeed the ecclesiological and
disciplinary problems with which the councils also struggled proved to
be as recalcitrant as the doctrinal ones. Yet Constantine could hardly
have left the Christians in different parts of the empire to go their own
way, and there were good precedents for recourse to imperial authority
for the settlement of disputes. Nevertheless, the intervention of

8 See R.M. Price, ‘Marian piety and the Nestorian controversy’, in R.N. Swanson, ed..
The Church and Mary, Studies in Church History 39 (Woodbridge, 2004), 31-8.

9 See on this Susan Wessel, ‘Literary forgery and the Monothelete controversy: some
scrupulous uses of deception’, GRBS 42 (2001), 201-20.

10 Alexander Alexakis, Codex Parisinus Graecus 1115 and its Archetype (Washington
DC, 1996).

INTRODUCTION

emperors in church affairs was a fateful step. Michael Whitby has
recently emphasized both how much state effort was put into achieving
the desired results at the Council of Chalcedon, and how recalcitrant
determined ecclesiastics could be.^^ Emperors were never able to
‘control’ the Church, and the precedent set by Constantine in fact initi¬
ated centuries of struggle. It is for good reason therefore that current
work by historians on the councils, as can be seen from the papers in this
volume by Fergus Millar, Richard Price and Catherine Cubitt, focuses
on the difficulties of achieving the formulations agreed by the councils,
on the methods and strategies that were adopted by interested parties,
and on the lengths to which partisan reporting resorted; but the fact
remains that these councils, and arguably the Council of Chalcedon most
of all, shaped the subsequent history of both the western and eastern
churches, centuries before the so-called Great Schism of AD 1054.
Indeed, the Council of Chalcedon and its reception have informed and
are still powerfully felt in the ecclesiastical development and traditions
of the western churches, the eastern orthodox churches and the non-
Chalcedonian oriental orthodox churches of today.

The rulings of these councils also covered moral and ethical questions,
and matters of church order, including the primacy of sees. As Judith
Herrin’s paper shows, the late seventh-century Trullanum, or Quinisext
Council, concentrated on filling the gap in rulings on such matters left
by the failure of its two most recent predecessors to issue such canons.
Gradually, by a complex process and only over a considerable period the
canons issued by ecumenical and other councils were gathered together
and eventually formed the basis of ‘canon law’, an ecclesiastical legisla¬
tive system which ran parallel to that of the state.This topic also
involves the much discussed question of the legal or quasi-legal authority
of bishops following on from the initiatives taken in that direction by
Constantine. Legal procedures were also crucial to conciliar decisions,
and many bishops were themselves legally trained; in terms both of
record-keeping and legal procedures it is no coincidence that the

11 Michael Whitby, ‘The role of the emperor’, in D.M. Gwynn, ed., A.H.M. Jones and
the Later Roman Empire (Leiden, 2008), 65-96, at 84-6.

12 The Synagoge or ‘collection of fifty titles’, compiled by John Scholasticus, patriarch
of Constantinople in the late sixth century, represents a key stage in this process. See
Caroline Humfress, Orthodoxy and the Courts in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2007),
chapter 7, ‘Forensic practice and the development of early canon law’, 196-213;
Hamilton Hess, The Early Development of Canon Law and the Council of Serdica
(Oxford, 2002); Norton, Episcopal Elections, 18-38.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Council of Chalcedon followed not long after the promulgation of the
Theodosian Code.^^

As is shown in the paper by Charlotte Roueche below, the study of
the councils leads us into questions of procedure and popular and elite
decision-making. Perhaps most of all, however, in recent scholarship on
late antiquity, the evidence of the councils, and not least that of Chal¬
cedon, is fundamental to the large body of work that has been published
on the definition of ‘heresy’; for ‘heresy’ is the other face of orthodoxy.
One way of explaining the emerging understanding of orthodoxy is to
say that it becomes clear through the condemnation of the heresies by
which it is challenged at different times; another, of course, is to say that
the concept of ‘orthodoxy’ itself is a construction which depends on the
labelling of other doctrines as heretical. Many techniques were
employed in late antiquity as part of this process, and conciliar defini¬
tions and conciliar debates and their recording were certainly among
them. It is hardly surprising then if by the early Byzantine period eccle¬
siastical writers began to appeal to the cumulative weight of the councils
in their attempts to summarize what constituted orthodoxy, or that the
councils took on a new life of their own in Byzantine iconography and
even acquired their own liturgical commemoration.^^

The papers in this volume have their origin in a one-day conference held
at Corpus Christ! College, Oxford on 18 November 2006, organized by
Mary Whitby, which revealed the range of current interest in this mate¬
rial. The contributors address some of the many issues which surround
the history of these councils, and demonstrate how immensely important
they were, and what a fruitful topic they provide for current and further
research. The conference was held to mark the publication in TTH of
the Price and Gaddis edition of the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon; it
is very appropriate that this volume, which inaugurates a new series,
TTH Contexts, should have been edited jointly by Richard Price and by
Mary Whitby in her capacity as a General Editor of the TTH series.

13 See Caroline Humfress, ‘Law and justice in the Later Roman Empire', in Gwynn, ed.,
A.H.M. Jones and the Later Roman Empire, 121-43, especially 139-40. Humfress
remarks that A.H.M. Jones ‘took it for granted that late Roman legal structures and
processes could not be analysed apart from ecclesiastical and religious develop¬
ments’; the converse is also true.

14 Humfress, op. cit., chapter 8, ‘Defining orthodoxy and heresy’, 217-42.

15 Christopher Walter, L’iconographie des conciles dans la tradition byzantine (Paris,
1970); idem, ‘Icons of the First Council of Nicaea’, in his Pictures as Language: How
the Byzantines Exploited Them (London, 2000), 166-87.

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON
AND THE DEFINITION OF
CHRISTIAN TRADITION

David M. Gwynn

‘Few councils have been so rooted in tradition as the Council of Chal-
cedon.’^ The words are those of Aloys Grillmeier, from the conclusion
of the first volume of his monumental work Christ in Christian Tradi¬
tion, and they are words with which the bishops who gathered at
Chalcedon in 451 would have wholeheartedly agreed. Yet what do we
mean by ‘Christian tradition’? How did that tradition develop over
time? Who had the authority to determine what would come to be
regarded as traditional? All of our contemporary sources for the great
controversies that divided the Christian Church in the fourth and fifth
centuries appeal to the authority of the one true and unchanging Chris¬
tian tradition. Yet at the heart of those controversies lies a debate over
the very nature and interpretation of Christian tradition itself. In this
short paper I wish to explore the place of the Council of Chalcedon in
that debate and the evidence of the Acts of Chalcedon that have now
become so much more accessible through the superb new translation
and commentary that Richard Price and Michael Gaddis have brought
before us.

In its broadest sense Christian tradition embraces everything handed
down by the Church from the time of the apostles onwards, including
doctrinal teachings, ethics, customs and liturgical practices. More
narrowly, tradition represents the expression of the faith of the Church,
preserving the Christian message revealed by Christ for later genera¬
tions.^ In western patristic studies a ‘traditional’ outline of the
development and definition of the Christian faith down to the fourth and
fifth centuries is structured around the fixed points provided by the

1 Grillmeier (1975), 550.

2 ‘“Tradition” refers simultaneously to the process of communication and to its
content. Thus tradition means the handing down of Christian teaching during the
course of the history of the Church, but it also means that which was handed down’
(Pelikan 1971, 7).

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

creeds and canons of the first four ecumenical councils - Nicaea (325),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) - and around
the writings of the Fathers whose teachings underlie and interpret those
councils. Within such a framework, it is all too easy to view Christian
tradition as something fixed and static and to assume that the great coun¬
cils and Fathers already held in their own times the authority that they
would acquire for later generations. Yet tradition is neither fixed nor
static but is constantly redefined as new controversies arise and contexts
change. The status of the councils and creeds of Nicaea, Constantinople
and Ephesus and of the writings of Fathers like Cyril of Alexandria was
by no means universally agreed at the time of Chalcedon, and still today
significant Christian denominations refuse to accept the authority of
Chalcedon or the vision of Christian tradition that Chalcedon upheld.^
In the Acts of Chalcedon we thus possess an almost unique opportunity
to observe the debates over the nature and interpretation of the Chris¬
tian tradition taking place at a council which would itself play a crucial
role in the definition of previous tradition and in turn attain traditional
status for many future generations.

From Nicaea to Ephesus II

The Christian message rests upon the historical event of the Incarnation
of Jesus Christ, and the highest authority of the Church lies in the scrip¬
tures which proclaim that original message. From the deaths of the
apostles onwards, the early Church placed great emphasis on the conti¬
nuity of her faith in the apostolic teachings preserved in the scriptures.
That continuity was protected by the principle of the apostolic succes¬
sion of bishops, already visible in Irenaeus of Lyons in the late second
century and laid down in detail by Eusebius of Caesarea in his Ecclesi¬
astical History, and it was Eusebius who first described those whom he
regarded as authoritative teachers as ‘Fathers of the Church’. By the

3 For an introduction to the differing attitudes of the non-Chalcedonian churches
towards the various great councils of the fourth and fifth centuries see for the Church
of the East (long wrongly identified in western scholarship as the ‘Nestorian Church’)
Aprem (1978), Brock (1985) and Bruns (2000), and for the miaphysite or Oriental
Orthodox Churches (traditionally and inaccurately described as ‘monophysite’)
Sarkissian (1965), Samuel (1977) and the papers collected in Gregorios, Lazareth and
Nissiotis (1981).

THE DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN TRADITION

early fourth century there had thus already developed a strong Christian
sense of the importance of tradition in maintaining the connection
between the contemporary Church and the world of the apostles. In the
years following the conversion of Constantine (306-37), the first Chris¬
tian Roman Emperor, this emphasis on tradition gained a new
significance. Complex doctrinal debates divided the expanding Church
on a new scale, debates in which all those involved appealed to Scrip¬
ture and the issues at stake could not be decided on scriptural terms."^

It was in an attempt to settle the greatest conflict to divide the fourth-
century Church, the so-called ‘Arian Controversy’, that Constantine
summoned the Council of Nicaea in 325 that condemned Arius and
declared the Son to be homoousios with the Father.^ Nicaea was the
largest Christian council held down to that time and the first council
since the age of the apostles that could plausibly claim to represent the
entire Christian body. Henceforth the debate over Christian tradition
would rest not only on the words of Scripture but on the statements of
great councils and of those who came forward to interpret those coun¬
cils. Yet the question still remained just which councils should possess
authoritative status and who were the ‘Fathers’ who would be recog¬
nized as the true interpreters of the tradition. As is well known, the
ecumenical authority of Nicaea and its creed was by no means immedi¬
ately accepted within the fourth-century Church.*’ There was nothing
resembling an initial consensus on the meaning of the ‘Nicene faith’, for
different bishops could and did interpret the Nicene Creed in very
different ways,’ and for several decades after 325 the creed was widely
ignored. Only in the 350s did Athanasius of Alexandria begin to

4 The following pages offer only a very brief survey of the crucial years that separate
Constantine and the Council of Chalcedon. A far more thorough examination of the
role of tradition and the appeal to the Fathers in the formation of Christian identity
in the fourth and early fifth centuries is provided by Graumann (2002), while for the
initial reception of the early ecumenical councils and their creeds see also the impor¬
tant article of de Halleux (1985).

5 The standard modern account of the ‘Arian Controversy’ is that of Hanson (1988),
although see also now Ayres (2004) and Behr (2004).

6 For the origins of the title ‘ecumenical council’ see Chadwick (1972). The title was
first applied to Nicaea by Eusebius of Caesarea {Life of Constantine III.6) and in the
Encyclical Letter circulated on behalf of Athanasius of Alexandria by the Council of
Alexandria that met in 338 (quoted in Athanasius, Apologia Contra Arianos 7).

7 Ayres (2004), particularly 85-100.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

proclaim the primacy of Nicaea over all other councils in his De Decretis
Nicaenae Synodi and De Synodis and to uphold the Nicene Creed as the
true symbol of orthodoxy sufficient to refute every heresy.®

The arguments of Athanasius exerted increasing influence as the
fourth century wore on, and the rising status of Nicaea is reflected in the
emergence of the legend that 318 bishops attended the council (the orig¬
inal number was closer to 220).® The sufficiency of the Nicene Creed as
a refutation of all heresies was taken up by the Cappadocian Basil of
Caesarea, who like Athanasius appealed to the bishops at Nicaea as
‘fathers’. Indeed, for the Nicene Creed to be upheld as representative of
orthodoxy it was essential to define Christian tradition through the
authority of the council and the Fathers as well as through Scripture, for
Scripture of course could not justify the inclusion of the unscriptural
term homoousios in the creed. However, Basil was also fully aware that
further doctrinal clarification was still necessary, particularly in relation
to the Holy Spirit who had barely featured in the creed of 325: ‘We can
add nothing to the Creed of Nicaea, not even the slightest thing, except
the glorification of the Holy Spirit, and this only because our fathers
mentioned this topic incidentally, since the question regarding him had
not yet been raised at that time’ (Basil of Caesarea, Letter 258. 2). It was
in order to justify his apparently novel teachings against the charge of
innovation that Basil attached to his work On the Holy Spirit the first
detailed florilegium, a compilation of extracts drawn both from the
Fathers and from Scripture, and he also appealed to the place of the
Spirit in liturgical custom.

Basil’s teachings underlay the expanded statement on the Holy Spirit
that appears in the creed traditionally associated with the 150 bishops
who attended the Council of Constantinople in 381.^^ Although
commonly known today as the ‘Nicene Creed’, this Niceno-Constanti-
nopolitan Creed differs significantly from the creed of 325 both in its

8 ‘What need is there of councils, when the Nicene is sufficient, as against the Arian
heresy, so against the rest, which it has condemned one and all by means of the sound
faith?’ (Athanasius, De Synodis 6). There is an assessment of Athanasius’ presenta¬
tion of the Nicene fathers and his appeals to patristic tradition in the De Decretis in
Graumann (2002), 119-41.

9 Aubineau (1966). For a tentative reconstruction of the original signature lists of
Nicaea see Honigmann (1939), 44-8.

10 Graumann (2002), 200-31.

11 On the council of 381 and its creed see Ritter (1965), Kelly (1972), 296-331 and de
Halleux (1982).

THE DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN TRADITION 11

enlarged reference to the Holy Spirit and in general wording, while also
omitting the anti-Arian anathemas of Nicaea. The only explicit authority
for the association of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed with the
Council of Constantinople in 381 is in fact the Council of Chalcedon, a
point to which I will return, and the bishops who gathered in 381 explic¬
itly upheld the authority of Nicaea. ‘Neither the faith nor the canons of
the 318 fathers who came together at Nicaea in Bithynia are to be
annulled, but shall remain valid, and every heresy is to be anathema¬
tized’ (canon 1, Council of Constantinople 381).

The status of the Nicene Creed as a statement of the traditional faith
of the Church was therefore firmly established before the outbreak of
the fifth-century Christological controversies in the conflict between
Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius of Constantinople.^^ In his Second
Letter to Nestorius Cyril invoked ‘the great and holy synod’ of 325 in
support of his doctrine of the hypostatic union of the human and divine
natures of Christ, a doctrine upheld at Chalcedon where Cyril’s letter
was recognized as the authoritative interpretation of Nicaea. Nestorius
in his reply rebuked Cyril for failing to understand the teachings of the
Nicene fathers and cited their authority to justify his own emphasis upon
the distinction of the two natures within the single person of Christ. As
this exchange demonstrates, the Nicene Creed like the scriptures could
not in fact settle the question of the relationship of the human and divine
natures of Christ, for Cyril and Nestorius each cited the creed on their
own terms. In his abrasive Third Letter to Nestorius to which were
attached the Twelve Anathemas Cyril insisted in uncompromising terms
on the undivided unity of the Incarnation, foreshadowing Eutyches’
later teaching of one nature in Christ after the union. Cyril refused to
accept that Nestorius could prove his orthodoxy by appealing to Nicaea,
for Nestorius’ interpretation of Nicaea was itself false. ‘It is not enough
for your Reverence only to agree in confessing the symbol of the faith
previously set out in the Holy Spirit by that holy and great synod
formerly gathered in Nicaea, for you have not understood or interpreted

12 For recent assessments of the controversy see McGuckin (2004) and Wessel (2004),
while for a more detailed analysis of the appeals of Cyril and Nestorius to the Fathers
and to tradition see Graumann (2002), 278-342. As Wessel (p. 302) observes,
throughout these controversies ‘the formation of Eastern Christian doctrine thus
proceeds not according to the ineluctable structures of dogmatic history but according
to a complex historical and cultural process fuelled by the claims of adversaries
competing to appropriate the Christian past.’

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

it correctly, but have perverted it even though you may have confessed
it verbally’ (Cyril of Alexandria, Third Letter to Nestorius)2^

This was the judgement that Cyril sought to prove at the First Council
of Ephesus in 431. At the council the letters of Cyril and Nestorius were
read out in turn and compared to the Nicene Creed, reinforcing the
central importance of Nicaea as the standard by which orthodoxy should
be judged. Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius was acclaimed and effec¬
tively canonized as a true interpretation of Nicaea. The need for such an
interpretation and the importance by 431 of the appeal to the authority
of recognized Fathers in addition to the scriptures is well encapsulated
in the words at Ephesus of the presbyter and notary Peter of Alexan¬
dria. Four weeks after the approval of Cyril’s Second Letter and
immediately following another reading of the Nicene Creed, Peter
declared that ‘it is right that all should assent to this holy creed, for it is
pious and also sufficient to benefit the world under heaven. But because
certain people, while pretending to profess and accept it, misinterpret
the force of the ideas according to their own pleasure, and distort the
truth, being sons of error and children of perdition, it has become
absolutely necessary to set out statements by the holy and orthodox
Fathers that can show convincingly in what way they understood the
creed and had the confidence to proclaim it, so that, evidently, all who
hold the correct and irreproachable faith may also understand, interpret
and proclaim it accordingly’ (quoted in Acts of Chalcedon I. 915). The
florilegium that follows, drawn from works cited by Cyril himself,
includes writings of Peter, Athanasius and Theophilus of Alexandria,
the three Cappadocians, Cyprian of Carthage, Ambrose of Milan,
Atticus of Constantinople, Amphilochius of Side and Julius and Felix of
Rome (the letters of the latter two, as is well known, in fact originated
with the followers of Apollinarius of Laodicea).^^^

Having thus proclaimed both the authority of the Nicene Creed and
its correct interpretation by Cyril and the other approved Fathers, the
council of 431 then proceeded to pass what has become known as canon

13 For the significance of Cyril’s appeal to Nicaea and his use of Athanasius’ anti-Arian
rhetoric against Nestorius in this letter to establish himself as the new champion of
orthodoxy see Wessel (2004), 126-37.

14 The most famous Apollinarian text cited by Cyril is of course the formula ‘one nature
(mia phusis) of the Word incarnate’ which he believed to be Athanasian. For a fuller
analysis of the texts associated with the First Council of Ephesus and the importance
of patristic citation in 431, on a scale not visible in earlier councils, see Person (1978)
and particularly Graumann (2002), 349-409.

THE DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN TRADITION 13

7 of Ephesus. ‘The holy council laid down that no one is allowed to
produce or write or compose another creed beside the one laid down
with the aid of the Holy Spirit by the holy fathers who assembled at
Nicaea’ (quoted in Acts of Chalcedon I. 943).^^ By Nicaea the bishops in
431 meant the creed of 325, for there is no mention of the Council of
Constantinople in 381 or its creed in the Acts of Ephesus I or in the writ¬
ings of Cyril, and this canon was to exert an important influence on
subsequent debates. The Formula of Reunion in 433 that reconciled
Cyril with the Antiochene supporters of Nestorius led by John of
Antioch recognized that the Nicene Creed still required further clarifi¬
cation, as had the council of 381 and Cyril in his Third Letter to
Nestorius. But the Formula made no claim to replace Nicaea. ‘We must
state briefly (not by way of addition but in the form of giving an assur¬
ance) what we have held from the first, having received it both from the
divine scriptures and from the tradition of the holy Fathers, making no
addition at all to the creed issued by the holy fathers at Nicaea. For, as
we have just said, it is sufficient both for a complete knowledge of ortho¬
doxy and for the exclusion of all heretical error’ (The Formula of
Reunion, quoted in Cyril’s Letter to John of Antioch, in Acts of Chal¬
cedon I. 246).

The status of Nicaea and the tradition of the Fathers remained a
central concern for the two men whose teachings and actions played a
crucial role in the resumption of the controversy after the Formula of
Reunion: the archimandrite Eutyches and Dioscorus the successor of
Cyril. In 448, Eutyches was condemned by Flavian of Constantinople
and Eusebius of Dorylaeum at a synod in Constantinople for teaching
one nature in Christ after the Incarnation. Eutyches maintained that this
teaching was in accordance with the faith of Nicaea confirmed at
Ephesus and with the faith of the Fathers, especially Athanasius and
Cyril. Such a claim had of course by now become customary, but Euty¬
ches is then alleged to have declared that ‘if it happened, as he said, that
our Fathers have made mistakes or errors in certain expressions, this he
for his part would neither criticize nor embrace, but examine only the
scriptures on such questions as being more reliable’ (quoted in Acts of
Chalcedon I. 648). No comparable statement occurs in any of the acts of
the fifth-century councils, and given Eutyches’ emphasis elsewhere upon
the authority of the Fathers he may have been denying the validity of
certain patristic passages brought forward by his opponents rather than

15 For discussion of this canon see L’Huillier (1996), 159-63.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

denigrating the Fathers in globo}^ Possibly Eutyches was responding to
accusers who pressed him with dyophysite quotations from the Fathers,
for apparently he repeated his earlier judgement in denouncing those
who taught two natures in Christ after the Incarnation. ‘He said that he
had neither learnt it in the expositions of the holy Fathers nor, if such a
statement were read to him, would he accept it, since the divine scrip¬
tures, as he claimed, make no mention of natures and are superior to the
expositions given in teaching’ (quoted in Acts of Chalcedon I. 648).
Eutyches’ insistence on the superiority of the scriptures to the Fathers
appears to have surprised his accusers, but his words were not directly
challenged or cited in his condemnation in 448.^^

Dioscorus defended Eutyches, and under his leadership the Second
Council of Ephesus in 449 (often described in the words of Pope Leo as
the Latrocinium or ‘Robber Council’) restored Eutyches to his office
and upheld the latter’s insistence that no addition could be made to the
faith of Nicaea. At the council Dioscorus had canon 7 of 431 proclaimed
once more, and then declared that ‘if then the Holy Spirit sat together
with the fathers, as indeed he did, and decreed what they decreed,
whoever revises those decrees rejects the grace of the Spirit’ (quoted in
Acts of Chalcedon 1.145). Eutyches’ accusers Flavian of Constantinople
and Eusebius of Dorylaeum were themselves denounced for preaching
a different creed (Acts of Chalcedon I. 962), and at no time does
Dioscorus show any awareness of the creed later associated with the
council of 381.^® Throughout the proceedings and subscriptions of the
council of 449 only two previous councils are ever acknowledged, Nicaea
and the First Council of Ephesus, while the acclamations of the
attending bishops affirm the authority of Cyril as the canonical Father

16 I owe this suggestion to Richard Price.

17 1 have quoted here from the summary of Eutyches’ argument read out in Constan¬
tinople in 449 when the minutes from the synod of 448 were re-examined at Eutyches’
request. The slightly different account of Eutyches’ argument originally recorded in
448 is preserved in Acts of Chalcedon 1. 359 (see Price and Gaddis, 1, 200, n. 220).

18 In a polemical letter written in c. 448, Theodoret of Cyrrhus asserts that Dioscorus
rejected the council of 381 not because of its creed but because of its second canon
which laid down that bishops should only act within their own diocese: ‘When the
blessed fathers were assembled in that imperial city in harmony with them that had
sat in council at Nicaea, they distinguished the dioceses, and assigned to each diocese
the management of its own affairs, expressly enjoining that none should intrude from
one diocese into another. They ordered that the bishop of Alexandria should admin¬
ister the government of Egypt alone, and every diocese its own affairs. Dioscorus,
however, refuses to abide by these decisions’ (Theodoret, Letter 86).

THE DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN TRADITION 15

for the interpretation of Nicaea not only through his Second Letter to
Nestorius but also through his Third Letter and its Twelve Anathemas.

Chalcedon

By the time the Council of Chalcedon was summoned by the emperor
Marcian (450-7) in 451, therefore, all were aware that the question of
the nature of Christian tradition and the interpretation of that tradition
was of critical importance. All agreed that there was one true Christian
tradition from which deviation indicated heresy. What was not yet
agreed was just what that tradition should include. All recognized the
authority of the scriptures and of the Nicene Creed, and the writings of
Cyril were also held in great respect. But how the Nicene Creed should
be interpreted remained a subject of debate, and so too did the question
of which of Cyril’s various writings were authoritative, a question that
particularly revolved around the status of his Third Letter to Nestorius
and the Twelve Anathemas. The bishops at Chalcedon, whose concep¬
tion of their own role as a ‘holy, great and ecumenical council’ (Acts V.
30) was far stronger than that of the Nicene bishops in 325, had to decide
these questions.

On one essential issue the council was indeed almost unanimous.
Christian tradition, like any construct of identity, is defined to a signifi¬
cant degree in negative terms, confirming what is to be approved
through the exclusion of those who lie outside the accepted limits. There
was already an established canon of heretics condemned at previous
councils, including Arius at Nicaea and Eunomius, Macedonius and
Apollinarius at Constantinople in 381. Few of those present in 451 were
prepared to protest against the addition of Nestorius (already
condemned at the First Council of Ephesus) and Eutyches to that
number, although the Egyptian bishops initially hesitated to anathema¬
tize Eutyches (Acts IV. 26) and Theodoret of Cyrrhus delayed long
before condemning the teachings attributed to his friend Nestorius (Acts
VIII. 5-13). The names of Nestorius and Eutyches thus joined those of
Arius and other heretics as terms of abuse that could be and were
directed against any position that a given individual wished to denounce
in contrast to their own ‘traditional orthodoxy’.

The positive question of what previous teachings could be upheld as
traditional and orthodox was, as always, considerably more difficult to
resolve. The authority of Nicaea was recognized by everyone at Chal-

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

cedon. The council was originally planned to meet in the city of Nicaea
itself to symbolize this continuity, and although this plan had to be aban¬
doned in favour of a location that enabled tighter imperial control on
proceedings, acclamations and appeals to the Nicene faith recur
throughout the council.^^ The Nicene Creed was read out before Chal-
cedon’s own Definition in the fifth session, thereby introducing the
controversial Definition in a form that all could accept, and the Defini¬
tion was presented in accordance with canon 7 of 431 not as a new
statement of orthodoxy but as an interpretation of the existing creed7°

Like the First Council of Ephesus in 431, the bishops at Chalcedon
also tested other patristic writings against the truth of Nicaea, and
approved Cyril of Alexandria as the authoritative interpreter of Nicaea.
The Definition upheld ‘the conciliar letters of the blessed Cyril’ (Acts
V. 34), particularly the Second Letter to Nestorius and the Letter to John
of Antioch concerning the Formula of Reunion. More ambiguous was
Chalcedon’s attitude towards Cyril’s uncompromising Third Letter to
Nestorius and the Twelve Anathemas. This letter is not identified in the
Chalcedonian Definition, and the proposal of Atticus of Nicopolis that
it be read in the second session (Acts II. 29) was evaded without formal
rejection, leaving the status of the Third Letter and the Anathemas open
for later debate. Chalcedon also upheld the Tome of Leo of Rome, but
despite western claims to the contrary it was Cyril not Leo who exerted
the greatest influence in 451.^^ The Tome, which Leo wished to present
as the definition of orthodoxy, was in fact judged by the eastern bishops
according to its agreement with the teachings of Cyril (Acts IV. 9).

Far more problematic for the bishops at Chalcedon than the status of
Nicaea or Cyril, however, was the demand that they accept the Niceno-
Constantinopolitan Creed of 381. As we have seen, this creed was

19 The original imperial summons calling the bishops to Nicaea in May 451 is preserved
in the emperor Marcian’s Letter to the Bishops (Price and Gaddis, I, 98). Miaphysite
writers like (Ps.-) Zachariah of Mitylene {Chronicle III. 1) and Michael the Syrian
{Chronicle VIII. 10) attribute the failure of Marcian’s plan to Divine Providence
protecting the holy reputation of Nicaea.

20 For the presentation of Chalcedon as a restatement of Nicaea see Grillmeier (1987),
210-22, Norris (1996), 141-7, and Price and Gaddis, I, 56-8.

21 Against the older view which privileged Leo’s Tome over Cyril as the crucial influ¬
ence on Chalcedon (Grillmeier 1975, 543-4, still upheld by Pelikan 1971, 263-4, and
2003,259), see among numerous studies Meyendorff (1969), de Halleux (1976), Gray
(1979), Grillmeier (1979), 753-9, and McGuckin (2004), 233-43. There is a recent re¬
examination of the role of Leo at Chalcedon in Uthemann (2005).

THE DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN TRADITION 17

apparently unknown to the council of 431, and is probably one of a
number of creeds then in existence and accepted as revised versions of
Nicaea. Certainly there is very little indication that the majority of the
bishops in 451 were even remotely familiar with the creed of the 150
fathers, which was introduced by the imperial commissioners as a
symbol of orthodoxy alongside the original Nicene Creed at the end of
the first session (Acts 1.1072). Before this stage, the only bishop at Chal-
cedon to have shown detailed knowledge of the creed of 381 is Diogenes
of Cyzicus in his account of the condemnation of Eutyches in 448. ‘He
[Eutyches] adduced the council of the holy fathers at Nicaea deceptively,
since additions were made to it by the holy fathers on account of the evil
opinions of Apollinarius, Valentinus, Macedonius and those like them,
and there were added to the creed of the holy fathers the words “He
came down and was enfleshed from the Holy Spirit and Mary the
Virgin”. This Eutyches omitted, as an Apollinarian’ (Acts I. 160). As
Price and Gaddis observe, Eutyches can hardly be blamed for not citing
so poorly known a creed.^^

In the second session at Chalcedon, the creed of 381 was then read out
in full in succession to the original Nicene Creed. The responses of the
bishops to the two creeds as recorded in the acts are enlightening. On
the reading of the Nicene Creed, ‘the most devout bishops exclaimed:
“This is the faith of the orthodox. This we all believe. In this we were
baptized, in this we baptize. The blessed Cyril taught accordingly. This
is the true faith. This is the holy faith. This is the eternal faith. Into this
we were baptized, into this we baptize. We all believe accordingly. Pope
Leo believes accordingly. Cyril believed accordingly. Pope Leo
expounded accordingly’” (Acts II. 12). The creed of 381 was then read
out. ‘All the most devout bishops exclaimed: “This is the faith of all. This
is the faith of the orthodox. We all believe accordingly’” (Acts II. 15).
No bishop was going to refer to the creed of 381 as the creed of baptism
or as the creed of Cyril.^^

Similarly, when the commissioners in the fourth session asked the
bishops to bear witness to the harmony of the Tome of Leo with the

22 Price and Gaddis, 1,158, n. 113.

23 The respective attitudes that prevailed at Chalcedon towards the creeds of 325 and
381 are perhaps best encapsulated in the statement of the Illyrian bishops during the
fourth session in their acceptance of Leo’s Tome: ‘We uphold the creed of the 318
holy fathers as being our salvation and pray to depart from life with it; and that of the
150 is in no way in disharmony with the aforesaid creed’ (Acts IV. 9.98). A similar
statement was made in the same session by the bishops of Palestine (IV. 9.114).

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

creeds of 325 and 381 (Acts IV. 8) the great emphasis in the acclama¬
tions that follow concerns Leo’s agreement with Nicaea, which
Constantinople confirmed. A few acclamations omit the 150 bishops of
Constantinople entirely (Seleucus of Amaseia, IV. 9.12; Theodore of
Damascus, IV. 9.14; and Polychronius of Cilician Epiphaneia, IV. 9.117),
while Romanus of Lycian Myra alone among the bishops not only
omitted to refer to the council of 381 but also questioned whether even
the Nicene Creed could provide an adequate basis to judge later writ¬
ings as orthodox. T agree that the two letters, that is, of Cyril of sacred
memory and of the most devout Archbishop Leo, speak in accord, but
the holy and ecumenical council at Nicaea did not discuss these matters’
(IV. 9.131). One might legitimately wonder whether other bishops
shared such concerns or whether there were at some stage during the
council any explicit objections to the introduction of the apparently
unknown creed of 381 into the debate. If there were, however, those
objections have disappeared from our official record.

We can at least be certain that some of those at Chalcedon did refuse
to adopt the 381 creed. This attitude was particularly strong in Egypt
where the earlier silence of Cyril and Dioscorus concerning the Council
of Constantinople and their rejection of any creed other than Nicaea
remained highly influential. When Diogenes of Cyzicus in the passage
quoted earlier from the first session condemned Eutyches for failing to
recognize the clarification of Nicaea provided in 381, the Egyptian
bishops immediately defended Eutyches and appealed to canon 7 of 431,
exclaiming ‘No one admits any addition or subtraction. Confirm the
work of Nicaea’ (Acts I. 161). The 13 Egyptian bishops in the fourth
session who asked to remain outside the debates until Dioscorus, who
had been condemned in the third session, was replaced likewise refer in
their petition only to the creed of 325 (Acts IV. 25) and omit any refer¬
ence to the creed of 381 as a symbol of orthodoxy. The strength of
Egyptian feeling on this question was apparently recognized by the
Emperor Marcian who in his Letter to the Monks of Alexandria in 454
(Documents after the Council 14) appeals solely to the faith of 325 and
not (as in his other writings after Chalcedon) to the creeds of both 325
and 381.

The Egyptian hostility to the council of 381 was also shared in Rome.
An important motive for the emphasis placed by the imperial commis¬
sioners at Chalcedon on the Council of Constantinople was that the
exaltation of the earlier council reinforced the famous decree, later
known as the 28th canon of Chalcedon, which proclaimed the privileges

THE DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN TRADITION 19

of Constantinople as ‘New Rome’.^'* This decree was approved in the
sixteenth session of Chalcedon^^ and led to immediate tension with
Rome, where Pope Leo appears to have had no more knowledge of the
council of 381 than the majority of his eastern contemporaries.
Anatolius of Constantinople, in his efforts to justify the contentious
decree, felt the need to identify the council of 381 and its leaders in his
Letter to Leo in December 451 (Documents after the Council 8). Leo
contemptuously replied that ‘your persuasiveness is in no way whatever
assisted by the subscription of certain bishops given, as you claim, sixty
years ago, and never brought to the knowledge of the apostolic see by
your predecessors’ (Leo, Letter to Anatolius, Documents after the
Council 10).

Nevertheless, the main body of bishops at Chalcedon did eventually
recognize the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 as a necessary
supplement to Nicaea, particularly to clarify the doctrine of the Holy
Spirit, and this recognition helped to pave the way for the Chalcedonian
Definition (Acts V. 31-4). The ongoing controversies of the preceding
decades had already demonstrated that appeal to Nicaea was not in itself
sufficient to secure unity in the Church. Yet the initial request of the
imperial commissioners for a new statement of faith in 451 faced consid¬
erable hostility, founded to a significant degree on a rigorous insistence
upon canon 7 of 431. The assertion that the teachings of the 150 fathers
in 381 represented not an independent creed but rather a ‘seal’ (V. 31)
on the faith of Nicaea offered a precedent to overcome this strong oppo¬
sition.^*’ The creeds of 325 (V. 32) and 381 (V. 33) were included in the
Definition proclaimed at Chalcedon,^’ which is thus placed within the
gradual unfolding of the Christian orthodox tradition:

24 For a thorough analysis of this decree and its relationship to the third canon of 381
which was invoked as its precedent, see de Halleux (1988,1989) and L’Huillier (1996),
267-96.

25 Price and Gaddis, 111, 67-73.

26 As Pelikan (2003), 14 has observed, although the Definition quotes the creeds of both
325 and 381, the bishops then refer to ‘this wise and saving symbol’ (Acts V. 34) in
the singular as sufficient for all.

27 For the textual difficulties raised by the versions of the two creeds included in the
Definition, which differ between the various Greek and Latin manuscripts of the acts,
see Price and Gaddis, 11,191-4. Interestingly, it is Eusebius of Caesarea’s version of
the Nicene Creed that appears to have been followed at Chalcedon and not that of
Athanasius of Alexandria, whose text of the creed contains an additional anathema
against those who teach that the Son was ‘created’ (Wiles 1993).

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

The creed of the 318 holy fathers is to remain inviolate. Furthermore, it
confirms the teaching on the essence of the Holy Spirit that was handed down
at a later date by the 150 fathers who assembled in the imperial city because
of those who were making war on the Holy Spirit; this teaching they made
known to all, not as though they were inserting something omitted by their
predecessors, but rather making clear by written testimony their conception
of the Holy Spirit against those who were trying to deny his sovereignty.

(V. 34)

Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius, his Letter to John of Antioch
concerning the Formula of Reunion and the Tome of Leo are likewise
received as authoritative interpretations, ‘for the instruction of those
who with pious zeal seek the meaning of the saving creed’ (V. 34). Finally
the new Definition is brought forward as the conclusive expression of
the traditional faith which these creeds and Fathers uphold. ‘Now that
these matters have been formulated by us with all possible care and
precision, the holy and ecumenical council has decreed that no one is
allowed to produce or compose or construct another creed or to think
or teach otherwise’ (V. 34).

This is not the place for a detailed discussion of the Chalcedonian
Settlement. In the context of the present argument, however, it should
once again be emphasized that the same gradual evolution in the defi¬
nition of Christian tradition that I have traced here down to 451,
particularly with regard to the status of the letters of Cyril and of the
creed of 381, can of course also be seen in the contrasting attitudes of
later generations towards the Council of Chalcedon itself.^® The ques¬
tion of whether Chalcedon was true to the legacy of Cyril remained
intensely divisive, as those who rejected Chalcedon denounced the Defi¬
nition’s formula of ‘in two natures’ as ‘Nestorian’ and a betrayal of
Cyril’s teachings.^® In reaction to and opposition against such miaphysite
accusations emerged the position often described as ‘Neo-Chalcedo-
nianism’ but better understood as ‘Cyrilline Chalcedonianism’, insisting
on Chalcedon as fully in accordance with Cyril and upholding the
Twelve Anathemas. This was the position affirmed by the emperor
Justinian at the Fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 553.

28 Modern studies of the reception of Chalcedon and the controversies of the following
centuries include Frend (1972), Gray (1979), Meyendorff (1989), Grillmeier (1987,
1995,1996), and Oort and Roldanus (1997).

29 The ambiguity of Cyril’s numerous writings which made possible appeals to him from
all sides in the subsequent centuries is brought out very well by Russell (2003).

THE DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN TRADITION 21

Yet the initial question in the years following 451 did not concern the
correct interpretation of Chalcedon but rather whether Chalcedon
should be accepted at all within the tradition that it had sought to define.
This is reflected in the Henotikon issued by the emperor Zeno and Patri¬
arch Acacius of Constantinople on 28 July 482. Motivated by the desire
to secure eastern unity, the Henotikon sidelined Chalcedon and
approved only the first three ecumenical councils of Nicaea, Constan¬
tinople and Ephesus I together with the Twelve Anathemas of Cyril that
had been omitted in 451.

We know that the origin and composition, the power and irresistible shield
of our empire is the sole correct and truthful faith, which through divine guid¬
ance the 318 holy fathers gathered at Nicaea expounded, while the 150
similarly holy fathers assembled at Constantinople confirmed it ... This too
was followed also by all the holy fathers who gathered at the city of the
Ephesians, who also deposed the impious Nestorius and those who subse¬
quently shared his views. This Nestorius, together with Eutyches, men whose
opinions are the opposite to the aforesaid, we too anathematize, accepting
also the Twelve Chapters which were pronounced by Cyril of pious memory,
archbishop of the holy and universal church of the Alexandrians ... But we
anathematize anyone who has thought, or thinks, any other opinion, either
now or at any time, whether at Chalcedon or at any synod whatsoever. (The
Henotikon of Zeno, quoted in Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History III. 14)

By the time of the Henotikon, it would seem, the ecumenical status of
the Council of Constantinople in 381 had achieved widespread accept¬
ance. Indeed, when the ‘Nicene Creed’ was incorporated into the liturgy
of the eastern churches in the late fifth and sixth centuries, it was the
Constantinopolitan form that was adopted, perhaps due to its more litur¬
gical character.^° But Chalcedon and its place within Christian tradition
remained very much open to debate. The definition of Christian tradi¬
tion was far from complete in 451, while Chalcedon in turn created new
divisions within Christianity and new and conflicting interpretations of
how Christian tradition should be understood.

30 For the incorporation of the creed into the liturgy, first associated with the miaphysite
Peter the Fuller, see Kelly (1972), 348-51.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Conclusion

The period surrounding Chalcedon that I have surveyed so briefly here
marked a crucial phase in the definition of a conception of Christian
tradition that rested not only on Scripture but on conciliar creeds and
their correct patristic interpretation. This emphasis on an established
canon of approved authority would strengthen further in subsequent
centuries, with both positive and negative implications for the history of
the Church. The construction by different Christian groups of their own
monolithic conceptions of the ‘orthodox’ past narrowed the parameters
of possible debate, excluding alternative traditions and distorting our
understanding of the development of Christian doctrine and practices
across time.^^ The ‘Select Fathers’ were idealized and de-historicized,^^
and the need to appeal to the authoritative past led inexorably to the rise
of forgeries and false patristic attributions in subsequent centuries.^^
When the bishops at Chalcedon exclaim that ‘no one makes a new expo¬
sition ... for it was the Fathers who taught, what they expounded is
preserved in writing, and we cannot go beyond it’ (Acts II. 3), one can
almost hear the voice of Edward Gibbon mourning the sterility of fallen
Byzantium. ‘They held in their lifeless hands the riches of their fathers,
without inheriting the spirit which had created and improved that sacred

31 The implications of rival conceptions of tradition for the modern ecumenical move¬
ment are brought out very clearly by Zizioulas in the dialogue between the Eastern
Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches over Chalcedon: ‘The whole problem of
Tradition emerges in the discussion as perhaps the ecclesiological issue par excel¬
lence. One could say that the difficulties we are here facing on the ecclesiological level
are precisely due to the fact that both sides in our dialogue take Tradition seriously,
and neither side is willing to sacrifice anything from what constitutes Tradition in their
eyes. Do we not need a clarification of this issue? To what extent are we prepared to
re-receive our Tradition in the context of our present day situation? Without such a
re-reception the ecclesiological issues we are facing will remain insurmountable. If
we intend to unite different Traditions we shall have an artificial unity. True unity of
the Church requires one common Tradition as its basis’ (1981,154).

32 Gray (1989). See further the introduction to Gray (2006), 25-8 and his discussion of
the famous declaration of Leontius of Jerusalem that ‘none of the Select Fathers is at
variance with himself or with his peers with respect to the intended sense of the faith’
(Leontius, Testimonies of the Saints 1849D).

33 On the ever-increasing role of forgery in Christian controversies in this period see
Grant (1960), Gray (1988) and (with a somewhat more positive emphasis) Wessel
( 2001 ).

THE DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN TRADITION 23

patrimony. They read, they praised, they compiled, but their languid
souls seemed alike incapable of thought and action. In the revolution of
ten centuries, not a single discovery was made to exalt the dignity or
promote the happiness of mankind.’^**

Yet Christian tradition has never been truly static and the concept of
tradition remains to this day of immense importance to the identity of
the different Christian Churches and their foundation in the original
historical revelation on which the Christian faith rests. Tradition is
Christianity’s memory, maintaining the continuity of modern Christians
with the worlds of the scriptures and the ecumenical councils, and to
remain relevant that traditional memory must remain a living dynamic
force, constantly reinterpreted and proclaimed to a changing world. As
John Henry Newman wrote in a famous essay in 1845, ‘in a higher world
it is otherwise; but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to
have changed often.The purpose of the bishops who gathered at the
Council of Chalcedon was to safeguard the essential continuity of Chris¬
tian tradition while adapting and interpreting that tradition to meet the
needs of their own times. This to a remarkable degree they achieved and
the same challenge now faces Christians today and in the future. ‘For
each age the task of proclaiming the traditional picture of Christ within
the framework of the current ideas and language still remains.’^'’

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CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

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THE DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN TRADITION 25

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Norris, R.A. (1996), ‘Chalcedon Revisited: A Historical and Theological
Reflection’, in Bradley Nassif, ed.. New Perspectives on Historical Theology:
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CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

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Chalkedon’ = id., Christus, Kosmos, Diatribe: Themen derfriihen Kirche als
Beitrdge zu einer historischen Theologie (Berlin and New York), 1-36.

Wessel, Susan (2001), ‘Literary Forgery and the Monothelete Controversy:
Some Scrupulous Uses of Deception’, GRBS 42: 201-20.

-(2004), Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy: The Making of

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‘READING’ THE FIRST COUNCIL OF EPHESUS (431)

Thomas Graumann

Acta conciliorum non leguntur - Nobody reads council acts. Eduard
Schwartz’s famous dictum^ is slowly being overtaken by recent scholarly
interest, no longer only of theologians and historians of the Church, but
also of historians of late antiquity.^ The fact that the first English trans¬
lation of the Acts of Chalcedon appears in a series for historians is
testimony to this development; it will surely spark many more studies
into the riches of this material. With a distinctly historical rather than
theological interest, new questions and scholarly perspectives open up.
Yet, every examination must confront a number of difficulties of prin¬
ciple and of methodological and hermeneutical challenges arising from
the character and the transmission of the body of conciliar records and
documentation. In the case of the First Council of Ephesus and the acts
associated with it, the complexity of the textual tradition, even more
than the sheer volume of information, compounds this difficulty - so
much so that their editor considered them to be more challenging in this
respect than those of the Council of Chalcedon.^ Council acts are highly
complex, elaborate products. In the Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum
seven (sub-) volumes of various Greek records and five of Latin trans¬
lations and collections are concerned with the First Council of Ephesus."^

1 Schwartz (1927), 212.

2 Andre de Halleux (1993), 49-50, could still justifiably claim that the acts of the
Council of Ephesus had not been scrutinized to any significant degree. The books of
two eminent historians of antiquity may illustrate the new-found interest: Millar
(2006); MacMullen (2006), for which see my review in Zeitschrift fiir Antikes Chris-
tentum 12 (2008), 172-4.

3 Schwartz (1956), 20.

4 It is important to note that E. Schwartz’s edition counts all Acts of Ephesus as a single
Tomus; consisting of a Greek and a Latin ‘Volume’. The Greek ‘Volume’ is subdivided
further into seven parts, the Latin into five; they total some 1800 pages. Further smaller
collections outside the A CO and in other ancient languages could be listed; see Rucker
(1935) and Kraatz (1904). A useful catalogue of the material is now available in Millar
(2006), Appendix A; see also my brief sketch in Graumann (2002), 352-7. In general,
Schwartz’s prefaces, spread over the volumes of ACO and combined with several sepa¬
rate publications on the textual transmission of the collections, remain the indispen¬
sable basis for all further study (cf. amongst others Schwartz 1920 and 1934).

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Their editor Eduard Schwartz’s principal insight was that the collections
in which we find them are what he called publizistische Sammlungen,
that is to say collections with a propagandists purpose, a ‘spin’ we might
say in an age of modern media manipulation.® The historical context of
any one collection and its intended usage determine and explain to a
significant extent the choice and arrangement of documents, and in the
case of Ephesus in particular helps to explain the growth of material
around an original kernel of documentation. The most extensive, the
Collectio Vaticana, in its final shape, comprises 172 items, including
major works and many letters by Cyril and texts by several of his main
allies. The collection’s starting point was the original protocol of the first
meeting of Cyril’s council, created within ten days of the meeting. The
already strongly pro-Cyrillian emphasis of this original protocol was
further enhanced by the subsequent growth of the collection to include
many more documents, mainly by Cyril. Only eventually, when the orig¬
inal confrontation was no longer of a practical concern, was some
material in connection with the rival meetings of the Orientals added to
it. Other collections tried to bring their own perspective to bear in
similar ways, principally by adding documents and rearranging what
they found. Hence, the collections of council acts and documents must
not be mistaken for dispassionately presented information. This funda¬
mental insight, to my mind, has not been applied sufficiently clearly to
those initial kernels of records of the assembly in session, around which
the ever-growing collections crystallised. In this connection the question
also arises whether the documentation of council meetings presents us
with an unbiased record of proceedings, with something akin to straight¬
forward minutes, or whether these protocols follow a distinct agenda
and propagandistic purpose of their own in a way similar to that of the
later collections which Eduard Schwartz analysed. The question is of far-
reaching consequence for our understanding of the historical events, and
it may explain the patterns of their reception, which shaped the way in
which the councils were remembered in later generations.

5 The insight is the basis for the entire edition and spelled out in many details in all the
publications mentioned (see previous note). It is most concisely expressed in his
‘Lebenslauf’, which deserves to be quoted here: ‘Man kann, muB sogar alle
handschriftlichen Sammlungen von Konzilsakten als Publizistik auffassen. Das deut-
lichste Beispiel sind die ephesinischen Akten...’ [‘One can, indeed one must, regard
all the manuscript collections of council acts as propaganda. The clearest example is
that of the Acts of Ephesus...’] (Schwartz 1956,13). See also Chrysos (1990).

‘READING’ THE FIRST COUNCIL OF EPHESUS 29

For our analysis it is of course necessary to remember that the
‘council’ of Ephesus was effectively split in two: on the one hand the
allies of Cyril of Alexandria, with whom the papal delegates later asso¬
ciated themselves, and on the other hand another group of bishops,
essentially composed of prelates from the civil diocese of Oriens (hence
usually the ‘Orientals’) who arrived belatedly and vehemently opposed
the decisions presented by Cyril’s side as a fait accompli. Over several
weeks, Cyril’s side convened formally at least six times, the Orientals in
separate sessions at least twice. This split, and the acrimony between the
opposing camps, provides the background against which the acts must
be interpreted. Both sides also needed to present their case before the
emperor. Cyril’s first meeting in particular had to demonstrate how it
could be considered a legitimate council despite convening before the
arrival of the Orientals, and how the proceedings had met the require¬
ments of a fair hearing set out in the imperial sacra, the letter of
convocation. The latter aspect in particular informs the self-presentation
of the ‘Cyrillian council’ in the acts. Accordingly, most attention will be
devoted here to the meeting of bishops in association with Cyril of
Alexandria on 22 June 431 that condemned Nestorius, then bishop of
Constantinople, for heresy, and to those aspects of later meetings of the
same group that shed light on the way they wanted this meeting to be
understood.®

As a first approach to the complex problems of the records of these
meetings, the following examination concentrates on ‘reading’ - reading
o/council acts and reading in council acts. These dimensions will turn
out to be intimately linked.

The reading of council acts did not start with later collectors, let alone
with modern scholarship, but commenced at the very councils we are
concerned with. The Council of Chalcedon spent the entire first session

6 The meetings of Cyril’s side are conventionally counted as at least six sessions (two
(?) further meetings might be counted as sessions seven and eight; cf. CPG 8744,
8745). Following this reckoning, the meeting of 22 June is the first, that of 22 July the
sixth session of the council. During this time the Orientals met in formal council on
26 and 29 June, and in all likelihood on a number of further occasions, from which no
protocols survive. Traditional accounts of the history of the council - to which the
cautionary notes of de Halleux 1993 (note 2) apply - can be found in Hefele/Leclerq
(1908), 219-422; Kidd (1922), 218-53 (critical of the irregularities of Cyril’s proceed¬
ings, but uncritical of the acts), and Camelot 1962. More recent but fairly condensed
accounts are those of Fraisse-Coue (1995), esp. 517-42 and Perrone (1993), esp. 91-
102 .

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

reading and re-reading the protocols of earlier councils, namely that of
the Second Council of Ephesus in 449 and indirectly also of the Home
Synod of Constantinople in 448 and some of the acts of the First Council
of Ephesus in 431 as read out at Ephesus in 449.^ Richard Price’s trans¬
lation lucidly documents the complex layering of the various texts and
readings and helps to distinguish the interjections and reactions of those
attending. It is evident from the interjections that the reading of acts
from earlier councils did not simply seek information about those occa¬
sions, but were deftly used to construct a case. They are our first
indications of the modifying effects of ‘reading’ on the body of text thus
scrutinised, and at the same time of the persuasiveness of such reading
and its utility for the active, if subtle, manipulation of the course of the
meeting in order to attain its desired result.

Some who had taken part in those meetings whose minutes were read
feel misrepresented and claim to have been coerced into signing incom¬
plete records or even blank sheets.® While some of their protests may
simply reveal their anxiety to distance themselves from their involve¬
ment and responsibility in the face of a changed climate of ecclesiastical
politics, the discussions nevertheless bring to the fore the question of the
accuracy and reliability of the ‘minuting’. In 449 two entire hearings at
Constantinople sought to confirm or challenge the accuracy of the
minuting of the trial of Eutyches before Bishop Flavian.® Much
depended upon it as judicial consequences were severe. Reading the
same texts afresh at the Second Council of Ephesus (449) was part of
Eutyches’ appeal against the verdict of the Home Synod which had
condemned and deposed him. Accordingly much of the attention
focused on possible evidence of misconduct and procedural flaws. At the
same time the participants in the council of 449 looked for potentially
heterodox opinions voiced in the context and applied, falsely, as stan¬
dards against which Eutyches could be judged. The reading at
Chalcedon, in turn, of the Acts of Ephesus II examined the legitimacy
of that council, its proceedings and decisions. It seems inevitable that the
distinct purpose of reading on any one occasion directed attention

7 See also the table in Price and Gaddis (2005), 1,113-14.

8 Take for example the debates at Chalcedon over alleged falsification of the minutes
of the Home Synod, Sessio prima 865-73 and 877, Price and Gaddis, 1, 272-3. The
layering of readings, interjections, and interjections and readings within readings, can
be traced throughout the first session, ibid., passim.

9 ACO II 1.1, pp. 148-76. Price and Gaddis, I, 28-9,116-17 gives a brief account of the
challenges to, and the examination of, the documentary record on this occasion.

‘READING’ THE FIRST COUNCIL OF EPHESUS 31

towards some elements and in contrast more or less disregarded others.

Rather more technical problems related to this kind of ‘reading’, and
the concomitant problem of note-taking and editorial managing of acta
may also be instanced here, and applied to the task of interpreting occa¬
sions of ‘reading’ at Ephesus. The records presented as read in the first
session of Chalcedon are so extensive that it seems implausible to
assume a complete reading, even if the session was extraordinarily
long.“ Evidently, we have to expect editorial reworking of the minutes,
in this case the insertion of the fuller records of earlier meetings at an
editorial stage of the preparation of the acta. At the same time, some
protocols of later meetings are so laconic that they can only be under¬
stood as abbreviated records, strictly limited to a summary of the
outcome of the occasion and at times giving a few indications of the
major contributory arguments or steps taken to arrive at it.“ One delib¬
erate and notable omission from the documents of Chalcedon is the first
draft of the definition later promulgated in an altered form.^^ Here,
evidently, the suppression of the earlier draft is not just a technical
matter, but can only be interpreted as an effort to erase any trace of
disputed notions, perhaps for fear of renewed future squabbling. The re¬
reading of council acts and related documents observed in the Acts of
Chalcedon attests the complex genesis of such acts in general, and serves
as a heuristic marker of the need to take seriously the purpose of their
creation - and of any subsequent reading.

‘Reading’ and the initial acts of the session of 22 Jnne

In looking more closely now at the acta of the so-called first session of
the First Council of Ephesus, we can reconstruct the framework for the

10 Acta I. 942a refers to the lighting of the lamps; Price and Gaddis, 1,112 with n. 2, doubt
the improbable length of the records and suggest several sections were possibly read
in abbreviated form and later inserted in full during the editorial process. They
consider parts of the Acts of Ephesus I a prime candidate for later addition.

11 Examples of this kind of abbreviated record in Ephesus I are the hearings of the case
of Cypriot bishops, Coll. Ath. 81 (ACO 1.1.7; CPG 8744), and another of bishops of
the province of Europa - that is the surroundings of Constantinople - Coll. Ath. 82
(CPG 8745; ACO 1.1.7, pp. 122-3); even shorter is the mere recording of a definition
about Messalians, Coll. Ath. 80 (ACO 1.1.7, pp. 117-18). See in general Chrysos
(1983).

12 Fifth Session 7-8, Price and Gaddis, II, 197, with the introductory remarks at 184-91.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

original production of the basic record, and illuminate the central role
of references to ‘reading’ in the composition of these acta.

From the correspondence of the council we know that the acts were
probably sent to the emperor Theodosius by the end of June 4312^ This
leaves a span of approximately ten days for their preparation. One might
consider this a relatively short period, given that the shorthand notations
needed to be transcribed, while a copy for the emperor was usually care¬
fully written on parchment and expensively fitted out. Nevertheless, ten
days left many opportunities for editing and revising, and there was
reason for it. As the synod of the Orientals had already met during the
period, Cyril and his aides can have been in no doubt that they needed
to convince the emperor of the legitimacy of their meeting in the face of
severe protests. It is no surprise, then, that there is clear evidence for
editorial ‘improvement’ of the acts. For example, it has been convinc¬
ingly argued that some signed up to the deposition only during the
following days. Not unusually, their signatures form part of the final
edited version sent to Theodosius, added to those taken on the day as if
recorded then.^'^ This addition of further signatories, while politically
important, does not impinge immediately upon the reliability of the
records, but is a first indication that the direct record of the day was not
necessarily considered the final expression of the ‘real’ achievement of
the council. There are further indications of tampering not just with such
lists, but also within the protocol of the day’s events; these, crucially,
underline the central importance of ‘reading’. Claims in the acts that
documents were read might have been the way in which editorial addi¬
tions were camouflaged.

Yet reading was clearly a major part of the council’s activity on the
day. Nestorius’ refusal to take part in what he saw as an illegitimate
tribunal necessitated an inquiry by proxy of documents. So the reading
and approval or rejection of documents was at the heart of the proceed¬
ings. The acts as we have them present us with the following sequence.
The tumultuous opening of the session with the challenges to its legiti¬
macy by the emperor’s representative Count Candidianus and several
bishops^^ is omitted - another obvious example of editorial trimming.

13 Collectio Vaticana 81,6 {ACO 1.1.3, p. 5, 21-2).

14 Crabbe (1981), with the criticism and additions in de Halleux (1993), 67-8.

15 Candidianus, Contestatio, and Contestatio altera: Collectio Casinensis 84-5 (ACO 1.4,
pp. 31-3); cf. his account before the synod of the Orientals, Coll.Cas. 87 (ACO 1.4,
pp. 86-7).

‘READING’ THE FIRST COUNCIL OF EPHESUS 33

but one that is entirely to be expected. After the reports of the various
delegations attempting to summon Nestorius, the bishops embarked on
the agenda, conducting for the most part a tribunal in absentia. The
Nicene Creed is read, followed by Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius.
The assembly is asked to adjudicate its orthodoxy measured against the
Creed. The letter is endorsed by the votes of the bishops, 125 of which
are quoted in the acts; then the protocol summarily claims the assent of
the rest. The process is repeated with Nestorius’ letter written in
response to Cyril. It is read and rejected as heretical. This time far fewer
individual votes are taken down, and the assembly resorts to the
shouting of repeated anathemas against the abominations of his teach¬
ings.^® Interestingly the final acclamation recorded leads back into an
orderly procedure. It demands “Let the letter of the most holy bishop of
Rome be read!”^^ The suggestion is immediately picked up by the
council’s leadership, and the proceedings move on with the reading of
this and further documents. There can be little doubt that the bridging
‘acclamation’ was either carefully instrumented by the cheer-leaders on
behest of the council’s presidency, or - more likely - represents an edito¬
rial hinge, joining the first part of the proceedings, which comes to a
conclusion with the condemnation of Nestorius’ letter, to the second,
which formalises this sentiment in view of the Roman decision of the
previous year.

Except for the very end of the session, this is the last time that any
reactions to events by participants are recorded. Partly for this reason
interpreting what follows is very difficult. After this point the acts
present us with the following sequence of documents and readings. First
Pope Celestine’s letter of summer 430 is read; it expresses a conditional
condemnation of Nestorius, subject to his failing to recant within ten
days of receiving the verdict. After that Cyril’s Third Letter to Nesto¬
rius is read - no reaction is taken down. It is followed by the testimony
of the bishops who delivered it to Nestorius in Constantinople in late
November 430. Further witness statements from conversations in

16 Gesta Ephesena, Collectio Vaticana 33-48. For further proceedings after this point
see n. 19. The protocol gives 35 individual sententiae, and sixteen acclamations after¬
wards. These acclamations can be understood as collective expressions of the views
of the synod, providing essentially the remaining ‘votes’ by different means. For accla¬
mations at synods and in public assemblies more widely, see MacMullen (2006),
12-23.

17 ylCO 1.1.2, p. 36, 5-6.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Ephesus follow. Then extracts from orthodox fathers are read/®
followed by extracts from various sermons and treatises by Nestorius -
again without recorded reaction. Finally a letter from the bishop of
Carthage is read, and only then is the verdict drafted, agreed and
signed.

If we start our inquiry into the reading of these texts with the last
letter, we are immediately confronted with the problem of its purpose
and the plausibility of its reading in the place indicated by the acts. Its
placing seems extremely odd. In the letter. Bishop Capreolus of
Carthage sends apologies for his inability to attend the council. He
reports the situation in North Africa, which did not even allow him to
convene a regional synod, let alone send an embassy to Ephesus: the
Vandal occupation made any such enterprise hazardous.^°

Andre de Halleux in his examination of the acts has argued that this
letter must originally have featured at the beginning of the session, or
even before it, when the presidency was trying to establish the range of
attendance.^^ So the insertion of the letter at this late stage seems a clear
example of editorial intervention - albeit (in his assessment) a rather

18 For this part of the protocol in particular, see Graumann (2002), 387-90, 398^00.1
am convinced that these ‘readings’ represent editorial additions. The earliest reports
by the council, to the emperor and the Pope, make no mention of such a reading (see
Coll. Vat. 67, 81, 82, with the interpretation in Graumann 2002, 393-8). To establish
their purpose the ‘patristic’ excerpts must be interpreted in conjunction with the
following extracts from Nestorius. The arrangement carefully reproduces the similar
juxtaposition of Cyril’s and Nestorius’ letters earlier, placing, in particular, textual
evidence of ‘orthodoxy’ before heterodox statements. The supposed use of patristic
texts in the meeting thus hinges on the plausibility of using Nestorian statements at
this late stage (after his heterodoxy had been established in the sentences on his letter
and after the applicability of Celestine’s verdict has also been confirmed) as further
accusations against him - which is their declared function according to the summary
given after the ‘reading’ by the chief notary Peter and Bishop Flavian of Philippi,
Gesta 60 (ACO 1.1.2, p. 52, 11). At this juncture, however, such accusations are out
of place and have nothing to contribute to the trial of Nestorius. The insertion of
patristic and contrasting Nestorian extracts, in my view, is an effort to show compli¬
ance with the imperial mandate for an open, substantial theological debate. The acts
‘establish’ the holding of a vicarious debate through the reading of contrasting
extracts, necessitated by Nestorius’ failure to attend the meeting.

19 Gesta Ephesena, Collectio Vaticana 49-62.

20 Capreolus of Carthage, Letter to the Synod = Gesta 61, ACO 1.1.2, pp. 52-3.

21 De Halleux (1993), 79, following Amann (1931), 114. Cf. Scipioni (1974), 219 and
Festugiere (1982), 244 n. 50. The same opinion is expressed, without discussion, in
Millar (2006), 19.

‘READING’ THE FIRST COUNCIL OF EPHESUS 35

mechanical and not very successful one. De Halleux has further noticed
that at several junctures the reading of additional documents or
proceeding to new agenda items is introduced by the same two people -
Peter the chief-notary of the Alexandrian episcopal offices and Bishop
Flavian of Philippi.^^ They alternate in proposing and seconding the
reading of certain texts, and they attempt to summarise their import for
the inquiry before moving on. It is of course possible that they acted in
this way on the occasion,but de Halleux’s conjecture which finds in
their interlinking remarks the work - and even the identities - of an
editorial team is attractive.^'*

This, of course, is not to say that the documents introduced in this way
were never read at all. The many hours of waiting for an answer from
Nestorius, before his formal trial in absentia even began, left much time
for it. Nevertheless, the sequence of documents in our acts owes much
to the editorial skill of a team of redactors, and does not simply reflect
the events of the day, however carefully they were choreographed by the
Alexandrian presidency. In the ten days between the meeting and the
sending of the acts to Theodosius, the supposedly mechanical process of
producing the acts invited a perfecting of the council’s achievement by
means of a careful editing of the minutes. The redaction of the records
could emphasise and clarify what the choreography of the day may
already have tried to accomplish, or it could rework such choreography
with the benefit of hindsight.

As a consequence, the acts need to be examined as the products of a
deliberate editing process aimed at persuading a readership and
contributing to the self-justification of the council, just as Eduard
Schwartz has demonstrated in the case of the later collections.

The extent to which such a process could reshape the actual proceed¬
ings depended on the particular circumstances of any one council. At
Ephesus the organisation of the meeting was firmly in the hands of the
Alexandrian presidency, with Cyril’s staff and aides. There was no signif¬
icant opposition and no outside control by state officials or opponents;
even the minuting we may safely assume to have been done exclusively
by Alexandrian stenographers. What does this mean for the reading of
documents on the occasion, and for our reading of the acts? Once we

22 De Halleux (1993), 78.

23 Similar roles can be identified at the Council of Chalcedon, see Price and Gaddis, I,
77.

24 De Halleux (1993), 78.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

accept that the needs of self-promotion and apologetics inform the char¬
acter of council records even at the initial stage of compilation, we have
to analyse with care the sequence in which texts and documents occur,
irrespective of whether we want to locate its origin in the design of the
meeting or in the editorial process.

The reading of documents in their conciliar contexts

The most notorious problem with the use of documents on this occasion
is, of course, the reading (if indeed it took place) of Cyril’s famous Third
Letter to Nestorius, concluding with the Twelve Chapters or Anath¬
emas. Much ink has been spent on the question whether it was endorsed
officially by the council as its Christological teaching.^^ If it was, did this
endorsement include the anathemas as the most uncompromising
expression of Cyril’s position? As we noticed earlier, no reaction of the
assembly to the purported reading of the letter is noted. From this alone
it seems impossible to decide whether it was discussed or even read. The
way in which the collections of the Acts of Ephesus are organised does
not help with our problem. All relevant documents are placed at the
head of the collection, before the proceedings. The minutes of proceed¬
ings, in turn, usually only quote the opening line by which to identify the
document in question.^'’ So, even if we take the information of the acts
at face value as recording the actual proceedings, we cannot determine
whether the anathemas were read with the letter. Nor do we know, here
or in similar cases, exactly which version of the text of a document was

25 Best discussion by de Halleux (1992); he rejects the notion that the letter was even
read.

26 For example Gesta 49 (ACO 1.1.2, p. 36, 22-5), Cyril’s and the Alexandrian synod’s
letter to Nestorius; Twi Et)>ia|3EOTdTa)i ica'i 0 EO 0 £P£ 0 TdT(i)i 0 t)}iAiTOt)pY<I)L NE 0 TopLtoi
Kupi>^>i 05 ica'i f| 0 t)V£>L 0 o{) 0 a 0 UVO 6 O 5 ev AA^avhpEtai eic Tfjg A’LyujtTtaicni;
biOLictjoEW^ BV Kupitoi xoipEiv. Tou 0 a)Tfjpo 5 f|[X(I)v Xiyovxoq Evapyw? 6
jtaxEpa f] [xriTEpa UJtEp £[xe ouic e 0 tl pou a^ioq mi ra koirca. [my emphasis]. The two
recensions of the Collectio Seguierana (Codex Parisinus Coislinianus 32 and Codices
Monacensis 115 and 116) reveal this arrangement even more clearly: ical dvEYvd)o0T|
Ka0a)5 npoTExaKxaL, as do the codices of the Collectio Vaticana (Codex Vaticanus
830 and Codex Ambrosianus M 88 , Codex Parisinus 416 and Monacensis 43) which
read: ... ical xd >vOiitd wanep jrpokdpjiei', cf. Schwartz, p. 36, apparatus ad loc. The
same formulas are used to indicate the reading of Celestine’s letter to Nestorius, Gesta
49 {AGO 1.1.2, p. 36,12-15 with apparatus ad loc.).

‘READING’ THE FIRST COUNCIL OF EPHESUS 37

read. The separate placing of documents made it all too easy for later
collectors and scribes to substitute a copy of a version of the document
found elsewhere and considered preferable. So was the version of Cyril’s
letter read that of our critical editions, was it read in its entirety, and did
this include the anathemas? We cannot be certain.

We can be certain, however, that this letter and those other docu¬
ments played an important part in the self-presentation of the Cyrillian
party before the emperor, and before a wider ecclesiastical audience. In
other words, the rationale and the objectives of the edition of the
published acts can be reconstructed with at least a measure of plausi¬
bility. And this task brings us back to the effects of the ‘reading’ of
council acts and documents. The Council of Chalcedon demonstrates
how the re-reading of earlier conciliar documents provides them with a
new context and in so doing subtly modifies their original message. The
same is true for the reading of documents at these councils. The context
of the meeting provides a lens that focuses attention on some elements
and obscures others. The principle is illustrated most easily from the
undoubted readings in the first part of the day’s proceedings.

At the meeting of 22 June 431 the effort to condemn Nestorius starts
from the measuring of Cyril’s and Nestorius’ teaching against the Nicene
Creed as the yardstick of orthodoxy. Recited immediately before Cyril’s
letter, the creed is still in the ears of those listening to the reading of the
letter. In this perspective, and with the creed’s wording fresh in the mind,
Cyril’s letter is perceived differently from its original context in the epis¬
tolary exchanges with Nestorius the year before. Cyril’s letter is made to
answer a specific question and takes on a new dimension.

Cyril quoted the creed near the opening of the letter; this would have
been picked up immediately and gained added significance; for this fact
on its own could now seem to be sufficient evidence for his adherence
to the creed. The votes cast affirm just that without any substantive
engagement with the disputed matters in hand or any detail of Cyril’s
exposition. The effect of this re-focussing of attention, brought about by
the context of the reading, is even more pronounced in the case of Nesto¬
rius’ letter. He too quotes the Nicene Creed, and his letter is as much an
exposition of it as Cyril’s. Yet after Cyril’s orthodoxy had just been
approved, his obvious opposition to, and contradiction of, Cyril’s expo¬
sition put him immediately in the wrong, unless the bishops wanted to
go back on their judgement about Cyril and revoke their agreement with
him, solemnly professed only moments earlier. Again, there is no
substantive engagement with Nestorius’ teaching, and this should come

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

as no surprise. The sequence of events had de facto changed the task of
measuring Nestorius against the Nicene Creed into comparing his senti¬
ments with Cyril’s interpretation of it. Viewed through the prism of
Cyril’s approved orthodoxy, Nestorius’ letter could only be rejected, and
his interpretation of the Nicene Creed was not even considered seri¬
ously.

The historian of dogma, rightly, tends to examine the documents in
question on their own merit, in order to assess the thinking of their
authors. However, the historian of the councils needs to pay attention
to the situational context determining their usage and reception, and
wherever possible, to the change of audience that such a re-reading of
texts entails.

Does this kind of reading of documents in the main trajectory, either
of the council meeting or else of the publicised version of the acts, shed
any light on the problem of Cyril’s Third Letter or that of Capreolus? In
Capreolus’ case, the matter is surprisingly obvious. At the council it was
not read out to make apology for the absence of the Carthaginian bishop
at the early stage in the proceedings when the participants and the range
of ecclesiastical representation were established. The reading of the
letter at a much later time in the proceedings diverts the audience’s
attention away from this element and focuses it on an entirely different
aspect of the letter. The subsequent statement of the president and the
following reaction of the assembly demonstrate that the sequence of
reading places the emphasis firmly on one central tenet, which the
Carthaginian bishop had stated emphatically. Capreolus was evidently
unaware of the substantive points of Christological teaching on the
council’s agenda; he therefore emphasised, in general terms and as a
matter of principle - as people do if they do not know about the detail -
the need to adhere fully and exclusively to tradition, and not to allow
any novelty of teaching.^^ It is this sentiment that Cyril, the president,
draws out in his brief summary of the letter^® and that the acclamations
of the assembly pick up: ‘These are the words of us all! We all say this!
This is the wish of us all!’ they chant.^® It is hardly a coincidence that this

27 Gesta 61 (AGO 1.1.2, p. 53,12-21).

28 ‘Let the letter of the most-pious and most God-beloved Bishop of Carthage Capre¬
olus also be inserted into the trust of the records, which has a clear meaning. For, he
wants the old dogmas of the faith to be confirmed, but the new and inappropriate
inventions and impious utterances to be rejected and thrown out’ Gesta 61 (AGO
1.1.2, p. 54,9-13).

29 Gesta 61 (AGO 1.1.2, p. 54,14-15).

‘READING’ THE FIRST COUNCIL OF EPHESUS 39

is the only time in the acts that we hear of the assembly’s response to
anything that has gone on before. The solemn emphasis on tradition
chimes with Cyril’s tactics to present himself as a humble follower in the
footsteps of the fathers, thus ‘walking on a royal road’, and to portray
Nestorius as the raging anti-traditionalist. Cyril’s self-portrait and
recourse to the fathers is present in both letters to Nestorius, and it is
further emphasised by the quotation of patristic extracts in the council
acts. The programmatic recourse to the Fathers and the self-styling in
their image is another, largely concealed, thread linking together the
various items of the agenda and of the documents employed to construct
it.^“ By contrast, the collection of incriminating passages from Nestorius
culminates in a brief statement in which he promises to remedy the defi¬
ciencies brought about by the teaching of his predecessors.^^ Cyril, and
the council, take this to amount to a contemptuous repudiation of all
tradition. The meeting’s outrage over Nestorius’ alleged anti-traditional
stance, in itself an anti-heretical stereotype, is neatly summarised by
Capreolus’ stern warning. This, therefore, is the last word of the council
before finalising the verdict of deposition. Rather than being misplaced,
as de Halleux thought, the letter is at its most effective in provoking the
desired reaction in the exact place where it was ‘read’. Whether achieved
through shrewd choreography at the meeting itself or astute editorial
rearrangement, the sequence of documents fulfils its purpose perfectly.^^
The knotty question of Cyril’s Third Letter can, to my mind, at least

30 Cyril, ep. ad Nestorium II (= ep. 4), in particular ep. 4,2 {ACO 1.1.1, p. 26,16-19); ep.
ad Nestorium III (= ep. 17), the quotation at 17.3 {ACO 1.1.1, p. 35, 12-14); the
‘patristic quotations’ precede the extracts from Nestorius, Gesta 54 {ACO 1.1.2, pp.
39^5, with 26 quotations of 10 authors). For Cyril’s strategy in evoking ‘the fathers’
see Graumann (2002), 278-419.

31 ‘I observe that our communities have got great devotion and most fervent piety but
often slip up because of ignorance of the dogma about the knowledge of God. This is
not a criticism of the people, but - how can I say it politely? - of the fact that your
teachers do not have the time to provide you also with the more precise doctrines’,
Gesta 60, no. 25 {ACO 1.1.2, p. 52,1-5). Peter, the chief notary, sums this statement
up as follows: ‘Look how openly he says in these [words] that of the teachers before
him no-one said those things to the people which he said’ Gesta 60 {ACO 1.1.2, p. 52,
6 - 8 ).

32 Vogt (1981), 94 also interprets the use of the letter in the place suggested by the acts
as a certain sign of the careful arrangement of the agenda of the day. De Halleux
accepts only Cyril’s summarising remark as part of the meeting; in his interpretation,
the editors of the acts used this remark to fit in the letter, which was read much earlier;
see n. 22 above.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

to some extent be resolved by a similar consideration. It follows the
reading of Celestine’s conditional condemnation, and is in turn followed
by the testimony of the delegation of bishops delivering it to Nestorius.
In their statements these clearly refer back to Celestine’s letter, even
grammatically; the observation led Andre de Halleux to claim that the
decisive editorial intervention occurred precisely here with the insertion
of this letter.^^ Strictly, the letter might indeed not be absolutely neces¬
sary in the context: its presence in the acts does improve, however, the
stringency of the case against Nestorius. Celestine had left it to Cyril to
enact the Roman verdict and the Egyptian synodal letter had an impor¬
tant role in the process; it spelled out what it was that Nestorius needed
to recant to avoid the deposition threatened by Celestine. In November
430 the delegation sent to him from Egypt consequently delivered both
letters, Celestine’s and Cyril’s Third Letter; the ‘reading’ in the acts
reproduces this constellation. Any alleged editorial insertion only takes
note of, and responds to, the implied argument in this sequence of
events; it is therefore not entirely impossible, nor even implausible, that
the letter should have been read for this purpose in the proceedings,
even if the precise circumstances are obscured by evident editorial inter¬
vention. Crucially however, whether read or inserted editorially, in this
sequence of documents and related procedural steps, its sole purpose is
to testify to the correct passing on of Celestine’s verdict to Nestorius,
which starts the mechanism for his deposition.^^^ Nestorius’ failure to
recant and, what is more, his repeated statement of incriminating ideas
right up to the council, even during the weeks in Ephesus, is then estab¬
lished by the statements of witnesses.^^ These give sufficient grounds for
Celestine’s verdict to come into force. Juridically, this was of course not
strictly accurate, since the convocation of the council explicitly
suspended all previous decisions.^® However, the council can portray its
own verdict as merely acting upon the Roman decision, something Cyril
was keen to emphasise in face of the foreseeable challenges to the legit¬
imacy of his actions.

In this sense, the letter finds a convincing purpose in the meeting as

33 De Halleux (1992), 447-8. My reconstruction of the editorial agenda underlying this
insertion differs from de Halleux; see Graumann (2002), 387-409.

34 In his introduction to the letter Wickham (1983), xxxvii, arrives at essentially the same
solution.

35 Gesta 50-3 (AGO 1.1.2, pp. 37-8).

36 Theodosius, sacra (AGO 1.1.1, p. 115, 31-2)

‘READING’ THE FIRST COUNCIL OF EPHESUS 41

well as in the published acts. Cyril may also have felt that the theology
of the letter had been endorsed at the same time - or wanted to convey
this perception in the days after the meeting. The Oriental bishops
certainly took its insertion in the acts to amount to an endorsement.
Their intention had been to challenge Cyril precisely over this docu¬
ment, so they were understandably suspicious of any apparently positive
mention of it.^’ However, in the process leading to Nestorius’ deposition,
the acknowledgement of the theology of the letter or the anathemas was
not even an issue. To this end, it was of no consequence.

Subsequent ‘readings’ of the initial protocol

The editorial composition of the protocol of this session of 22 June, by
its references to real or pretended ‘reading’, anticipated the varied inter¬
ests of potential readerships; it can be demonstrated to have achieved a
fair degree of success.

Cyril’s presentation of his case certainly had the desired effect upon
the Roman legates. On their belated arrival, they requested to be
informed of the council’s activities and were presented, on 10 July, with
the records of the meeting deposing Nestorius. They read them in
private, and they were read again publicly and officially endorsed in
session on the next day. Pope Celestine’s envoys were manifestly
relieved and satisfied with the way in which the council had followed and
reinforced the Roman verdict - just what Cyril had wanted to demon¬
strate. Their reading of the acts, the first in a long series, singled out and
underscored what was already one main emphasis in the composition of
the earliest, Cyrillian version of the protocol, namely that the condem¬
nation of Nestorius was completely consonant with the Roman
decision.^^

While the Roman embassy read the acts as the confirmation of

37 For the attacks on the anathemas by a number of theologians in the ‘Antiochene’
camp, see Mahe (1906). Their ongoing protestations at Ephesus are evident from
Collectio Vaticana 151 (ACO 1.1.5, pp. 121-2), 153 (pp. 124-5), 154 (p. 125), 157 (p.
129).

38 Acta of July 10 and 11, Collectio Vaticana 106, ACO 1.1.3, pp. 53-63. This dimension
of the acts of 22 June is also present in Capreolus’ letter, who refers contentious ques¬
tions to the ‘authority of the Apostolic See’, Gesta 61 {ACO 1.1.2, p. 53, 19-20; cf.
22-24), yet another link in the mesh of documents woven by the acts.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Rome’s authority and theological judgement, the council, in a further
meeting on 22 July, highlighted yet another dimension of their previous
decision. It used the case brought by a presbyter who had complained
that agents of Nestorius at Philadelphia had used an unauthorized creed
in the reception of Quartodecimans, as a convenient opportunity to look
back on the meeting of 22 June. The selective ‘reading’^® - or, in my view
more probably, the editorial re-composition - of parts of the protocol of
that occasion now supplied the explicit theological rationale for the
argumentation against Nestorius which had been missing or was at best
implicit in the earlier meeting. In the new presentation, the testimonies
of fathers are repositioned to follow immediately the Nicene Creed. In
consequence the doctrinal norms and authorities are spelled out with
great conceptual clarity: the Nicene Creed is the irrevocable and suffi¬
cient expression of faith; as such it is the norm of doctrinal judgment;
however, the patristic citations provide the necessary interpretation of
the creed, protecting it against a merely formulaic acceptance without a
real commitment to its ‘proper’ meaning. The case of the Quarto¬
decimans then heard reveals Nestorius’ breach of this standard, which
the council eventually decides to condemn formally. In my contention
these decisive moves are well-planned editorial interventions, rather
than real cases of ‘reading out’.^^** But in any case, the revisiting after four
weeks of the acts of the earlier meeting reconstructs the sequence of
documents and by this measure alters the perception of that meeting in
such a way that the theological rather than the personal dimension of
Nestorius’ deposition is presented as the real achievement of the council.
The Councils of Ephesus II and later Chalcedon read these passages
alone rather than the original deposition of Nestorius. It shows how a
specific interest in the construction of legitimate theological argument,
and the concomitant demarcation of its limits, had become the dominant
perspective on the council, and was as such a useful tool in building a
case on those later occasions. Here the council’s new self-presentation,
achieved through reading and editing, proved effective with later
readers; later reading, in turn, determined for the foreseeable future the
dominant assessment of the council’s outcome and importance.

39 So Price and Gaddis, I, p. 300, nn. 347 and 349, by analogy, one suspects, to the way
in which such reading was conducted at Chalcedon and Ephesus II.

40 See Graumann (2002), 400-9. My hypothesis is now confirmed by the independent
study of Abramowski (2004).

‘READING’ THE FIRST COUNCIL OF EPHESUS 43

Conclusion

Reading has been shown to be a major activity of the councils of the time
- both the reading of individual documents and the reading of entire sets
of acts. The revisiting of texts in this way amounted to their re-contex-
tualisation, in such a way as to shape distinct expectations in the
readership, creating heightened attention to some elements in the docu¬
ments and a corresponding neglect of others. The skilful presentation of
documents in published acts purposely sought to create this effect for a
secondary audience, an audience of the wider Church and - most impor¬
tantly - the emperor and his court. It is here that we find expression of
the ultimate objective of a council, which has to guide us in our criticism
and interpretation. For the historian, attention to the thin thread of often
skilfully concealed arguments, insinuated with the help of documents, is
paramount in interpreting the dynamics of council meetings. In this way
any modern ‘reading’ and interpretation of council acts and documents
has to take seriously their production and use as instruments of propa¬
ganda and self-promotion.

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- (1934), Publizistische Sammlungen zum Acacianischen Schisma

ABAW.PH 10.

- (1956), ‘Wissenschaftlicher Lebenslauf, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 2

(Berlin), 1-21.

Scipioni, L.I. (1974), Nestorio e il concilio di Efeso, Storia dogma critica
(Milano).

Vogt, H. J. (1981), ‘Das gespaltene Konzil von Ephesus und der Glaube an den
einen Christus’, Trierer Theologische Zeitschrift 90: 89-105.

Wickham, Lionel, ed. and trans. (1983), Cyril of Alexandria, Select letters
(Oxford).

THE SYRIAC ACTS OF THE SECOND COUNCIL
OF EPHESUS (449)

Fergus Millar

Introduction

The Second Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon, called
two years later, are inextricably linked, by their historical context, in
their theological conclusions (in that the one was called with the delib¬
erate intention of annulling measures taken at the other, and of having
a new definition of faith adopted), and in the manuscript tradition
through which the record of most of their proceedings is preserved. The
Council of Ephesus, called by Theodosius II when, as it turned out by
accident, his reign had little more than a year to run, represented an
emphatic victory for the ‘miaphysite’ (one-nature) tendency in the
Greek Church. The presidency was given to Dioscorus, bishop of
Alexandria; Theodoret, as the most prominent remaining proponent of
a ‘dyophysite’ (two-nature) Christology not in exile, was excluded; and
the first session, held on 8 August 449, rehearsed in immense detail the
record of proceedings against the extreme-miaphysite archimandrite
Eutyches in the autumn of 448, and of hearings called to hear disputes
over that record earlier in 449, before absolving Eutyches, and declaring
the deposition of Flavian, bishop of Constantinople.

It is the quotation in the acts of the first session at Chalcedon, called
by the new emperor Marcian, of this part of the proceedings, incorpo¬
rating verbatim re-quotations of the records of the hearings held
between autumn 448 and spring 449, that preserves for us the record in
Greek of the first session at Ephesus, ending with the written affirma¬
tions (‘subscriptions’ - ijjTOYpa(t)ai) of 140 participants. It may be worth
noting here that there would now be no difficulty in extracting these
quotations, in the original Greek from Schwartz’ great edition {ACO
II.1), and in English from the acts edited by Price and Gaddis, to produce
an integrated edition, with facing English translation, of the whole
surviving acts of the first session at Ephesus.

However, since this paper will essentially be concerned with the

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

published Syriac text of subsequent proceedings at Ephesus, it should be
noted that there is in fact a continuous text (i.e. one not quoted in
sections in the proceedings of a later council) of the first session of
Ephesus II, namely in a Syriac MS formerly in the British Museum and
now in the British Library {BM Add. 12,156). According to the entry in
the great catalogue by Wright 1871, no. DCCXXIX, these acts are
included along with a large number of theological works in a sixth-
century codex ‘in a fine Edessene hand’, written before CE 562. It
appears to be a complete record of the proceedings, with quotation of
relevant documents, but omitting the usual lists of participants at the
beginning and of their ‘subscriptions’ at the end. It seems therefore to
be approximately contemporary with the codex which is the main
subject of this paper, and it is astonishing to find that it has never been
printed (or still less commented on), and that the only published pres¬
entation of it is the English translation offered by Perry (1881), 401-36.
A modern introduction, text, translation and commentary is surely
overdue.

In the absence of any printed text, this paper can take the question of
this early Syriac version no further, but will turn instead to another sixth-
century version of proceedings at Ephesus II, which has a complex
relationship to the record of some of the later sessions at Chalcedon. For,
as we will see, some of these sessions at Chalcedon had the specific
purpose of reviewing - and reversing - other decisions reached at
Ephesus. In particular. Sessions VIII-X (following the Latin numbering;
IX-XI in the Greek), held on 26-27 October 451, reviewed the cases of
Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Sophronius of Telia, John of Germanicia,
Amphilochius of Side and - most relevant of all - Ibas of Edessa, several
of whom had been condemned at Ephesus (see below). But the acts of
these sessions at Chalcedon, as recorded in Greek and subsequently in
Latin translation, though they incorporate quotations of some earlier
documents and records of proceedings, do not include any verbatim
quotations of the proceedings at Ephesus two years earlier.

That is therefore the first of many different reasons why it is of excep¬
tional importance that a record of the proceedings at Ephesus at a
session subsequent to the first one is preserved in Syriac translation. The
second is that the manuscript in question, a codex now held in the British
Library {BM Add. 14, 530), was written at a monastery near Apamea in
CE 535, less than a century after the events in question. Like the codex
mentioned above, it is thus, first, centuries earlier than any of the other
relevant MSS (i.e. those of Chalcedon), all of which belong (at best) to

THE SYRIAC ACTS OF EPHESUS H

the high medieval period. As such, it therefore also has a place in a major
historical question which will be no more than hinted at here, the evolu¬
tion of Syriac as language of Christian culture, and its complex relation
to Greek. ^ More specifically, it has a place in the chronological and
spatial record of the public writing of Syriac (see below); and, more
specifically still, it can be located within the truly remarkable series of
Syriac codices dated from the beginning of the fifth century to the end
of the sixth (see also below). The writing and copying of Syriac codices
of course represents a continuous tradition lasting into the modern era.
But for our purposes the known examples from the fifth-sixth centuries,
all written in the ‘rounded’ Estrangela script, normal in the pre-Islamic
period, will be sufficient.

The date at which this record of proceedings (or, to be more precise,
this series of extracts from proceedings) was written in Syriac, CE 535,
is also highly significant in itself, as it derives from the earlier period of
Justinian’s reign, in which the emperor was making every effort to reach
agreement with the proponents of a miaphysite theology - only (as we
will see below) to abandon this effort a year later, in 536, and to have the
key figures condemned by a synod in Constantinople. The Syriac
extracts represent two essential aspects of the miaphysite outlook of the
530s; a record of proceedings against some prominent dyophysite
bishops from Syria and Osrhoene who had been condemned and
deposed at Ephesus; and, with that, a recall of what had turned out to be
a brief moment of triumph for the miaphysite side under Theodosius II,
only for the cause to be betrayed, as they saw it, by Marcian.

Thus, though what the codex contains is strongly biased towards local
issues and personalities, in Edessa above all, and though it is written in
a Semitic language and script which had only quite recently acquired an
established role in the Near Eastern Church, the proceedings of which
it is a record had taken place in the heart of the Greek world, on the
coast of the Aegean, and had originally been recorded in Greek.

This is not the place to discuss the very complex question of how and
by whom a record, or a set of competing records, of the proceedings at
Ephesus had first been generated in Greek, and then entered into circu¬
lation.^ Suffice to say that there were disputes at Ephesus about the

1 For some recent approaches to this issue see Brock (1984), (1990), (1992); Millar

(1998); (2006), 107-116; Taylor (2002).

2 For some discussion of the generation and character of the Acts of Ephesus, the

subject of impassioned debate at Chalcedon, see Millar (2006), App. 1-11.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

validity of the records of earlier proceedings, and then at Chalcedon as
to the record of Ephesus itself (which reveal that several rival records
were being made simultaneously), showing that there never was a single
agreed, or official, version. Even without allowing for the acutely contro¬
versial and partial character of the record-taking, the processes of
generating written texts of oral exchanges which also involved quotation
of earlier records, or of relevant theological texts, or of letters from
emperors or officials, indicate that any such record was inevitably a
construct, involving both editorial choices (When to abbreviate or
summarize? What do to with interventions in languages - Latin, Syriac
or Coptic - other than Greek?), and ‘political’ or theological structuring.

None the less, it is clear that very detailed records of the proceedings
at fifth-century councils, including also the First Council of Ephesus of
431, were composed and circulated, and that the versions represented
by high-medieval Greek MSS and by the equally high-medieval MSS
containing Latin translations, of which the earliest are directly contem¬
porary ones, while they do of course reveal significant variations (for
instance in the numbering of sessions at Chalcedon), do actually
produce, as the sterling work of Price and Gaddis shows, a record which
is, if anything, surprisingly consistent and reliable. What is perhaps even
more significant, a record of the Acts of Ephesus II which is consistent
with what can be found in medieval MSS was available to Nestorius, in
exile in the Great Oasis from late 431 to his death in the early 450s, and
could be used by him for the composition of his acutely polemical work
of self-justification. The Book (or Bazaar) of Heraclides, written in
Greek, but known only from a Syriac translation (very probably with
some editing, and also some addition of material), which also seems to
have been made in the sixth century. Equally, at the end of the same
century, Evagrius, in his Ecclesiastical History, was able to make very
extensive and detailed use of the Greek Acts of Chalcedon.^

The vast and varied manuscript evidence, in which Latin versions play
a very important part, would certainly allow for further detailed work
on the composition of the original text - or rival texts - of the proceed¬
ings of Ephesus I and II and of Chalcedon, on the making of derivative
copies, or partial copies, and then on circulation and availability. The
manuscript tradition is also complicated by the fact that they incorpo-

3 See esp. the excellent introduction, translation and notes on Evagrius, by Michael
Whitby (Liverpool, 2000). The most detailed use of the Acts of Chalcedon is made in
the long epitome at the end of the second book (II. 18).

THE SYRIAC ACTS OF EPHESUS H

rate as well collections of relevant documents which are not in them¬
selves reports of proceedings, but which were put together by
contemporaries, and then attached to the acts proper.

As will be seen below, the Syriac codex of CE 535 is clearly a selec¬
tion, designed to a particular end; but, for the reasons just stated, we
have no means of knowing what Greek version lay behind it. Strictly
speaking also, what the scribe who records his writing of the text claims
is precisely that. His personal hand-written affirmation (‘he has striven
and produced this book’), which can be seen on the plate (overleaf),
reproducing most of folio 108a of the codex, may imply that he was also
responsible for the translation from Greek. But he does not say so, and
it is perfectly possible that the Syriac translation was already in circula¬
tion. None the less this codex should be considered first in terms of its
place in the history of public writing in Syriac.

The Syriac Codex and Writing in Syriac

In considering the remarkable rise of Syriac to the status of an estab¬
lished language of Christian culture, time and place are vital, above all
if we are to avoid the confusion arising from thinking of the language
and script which we call ‘Syriac’ as having been native to the Roman
province of Syria. On the contrary, the evidence shows quite clearly that
the area where Syriac had first come into use - on inscriptions, mosaic
inscriptions and in official or legal documents - lay east of the Euphrates,
in Mesopotamia and Osrhoene, a minor kingdom which became a
Roman province in the third century."* It was here also that Bardesanes,
the main speaker in (and probably author of) the early third-century
Syriac work The Book of the Laws of Countries, had lived and written.
Syriac is known to have been in use as a literary language also further
east, in what became the Roman province of Mesopotamia with its main
city (until its loss to the Persians in 363) Nisibis, where Ephraem,
acknowledged as the greatest Syriac author, wrote before moving to
Edessa. The language was used also further east still, in Sasanid Persian
territory, where Aphraat wrote in the first half of the fourth century.
There is, however, no documentary or manuscript evidence for the
writing of Syriac in this area in this early period. But that is an accident
of our evidence, and there is no reason to question the currency of Syriac

4 For a masterly introduction to the whole field see now Brock (2006).

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

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BM Add 14,530, p. 108a. The formal conclusion of the Acts written in CE 535,
with the first of two personal affirmations by the scribe. Reproduced by kind
permission of the British Library. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved

THE SYRIAC ACTS OF EPHESUS H

on either side of the Roman/Persian frontier. For a history of Syriac
writing, however, we depend on material which comes, first, from
Osrhoene and which then spreads west across the Euphrates to Syria
proper: inscriptions (beginning in the first century and continuing),
mosaic inscriptions, parchments (known only from the third century),
and finally manuscripts, from the early fifth century onwards.

The available information is set out schematically here in two tables.
The first traces the progressive appearance of Syriac in dated inscrip¬
tions on stone or mosaic known to come from west of the Euphrates,
from the late fourth century to the end of the sixth.^ Modest as the statis¬
tical basis is, the evidence makes clear that in this area the presence of
written Syriac in public contexts developed only slowly, and was well
established only in the sixth century.

(a) Dated Syriac inscriptions of the fourth to sixth centuries from west of
the Euphrates

AAES = Littmann, Enno (1904), Publications of an American Archaeological
Expedition to Syria in 1899-1900. IV. Semitic Inscriptions, Pt. I. Syriac
Inscriptions

IGLS = Inscriptions Grecques et Latines de la Syrie

Pognon, Inscriptions = Pognon, Henri (1907), Inscriptions semitiques de la Syrie,
de la Mesopotamia et de la region de Mossoul
PUAES = Littmann, Enno (1934), Publications of the Princeton University
Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904-5 and 1909. IV. Semitic
Inscriptions, Section B. Syriac Inscriptions

389

IGLS 11.555

Babisqa. Bilingual. Names (one transliter¬
ated Greek name)

434

PUAES\W.B,A

Dar Qita. Bilingual.

441/2

PUAES IWB, 11

Qasr Iblisu. Construction of baptistery

456/7

IGLS II, 373 =

Ann. Isl. 9, 1970,190

Borj el Kas. Bilingual. Acclamations

473/4

IGLS II, 553

Khirbet el Khatib. Bilingual. Construction
of church

491-6

PUAES IV.B, 50 =
Pognon, Inscriptions,
no. 21 (p. 60)

Basufan (near Qalaat Seman).
Construction of church

5 Compare now the excellent paper by Sebastian Brock (2009), ‘Edessene Syriac
Inscriptions in Late Antique Syria’, which also incorporates an integrated list of dated
inscriptions and mss. Note that the list offered here relies on published texts, and is
confined to the area west of the Euphrates.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

500

P. Donceel-Voute,

Les pavements des
eglises, p. 192

Umm Hartain, near Hama. Church
mosaic, with dated Greek inscription. Two
Syriac words

501/2

PUAES IV.B, 57

Surqanya. Lintel of house

507/8

AAES IV, 6 = Pognon,
Inscriptions, nos. 81-2
(p. 143)

Khirbet Khasan. Church

512

IGLS II, 310

Zebed. Trilingual. (Greek, Syriac,

Arabic). Establishment of martyrion

513

PUAES IV.B, 23

Fidreh. Lintel of baptistery

515/16

Orientalia 64 (1995),

p. 110

Ma ar-zayta. Church (?) mosaic

525/6

PUAES IV.B, 52

Kefr Nabu. Chapel

532

PUAES IV.B, 24

Fidreh. House

533

PUAES IV.B, 8

Khirbet el Khatib. Baptistery

539/40

PUAES IV.B, 58

Surqanya. Lintel of house

543/4
or 550/1

PUAES IV.B, 54

Kalota. House

545/6(?)

PUAES IV.B, 55

Kalota. House

546?

AAES IV, 10

Baqirha. Church

547

AAES IV, 14; 15

Babisqa. Stoa

547/8

MUSJ 16
(1932), p. 105

Harba‘ara. Church

551/2?

PUAES IV.B, 2

Abu’l Kudur. House?

563/4

IGLS II, 317
= R. Mouterde, Limes
(1945) 325, no. 10

Rasm al Hajal, Palmyrene. Construction
of church

574/5

MUSJ 25 (1942/3), 81

Gebel BiPas. Construction at monastery

577/8

PUAES IV.B, 26

Der Siman. Construction of house

578/9

PUAES IV.B, 27

Der Siman. Construction of house

579/80

Mouterde, 224, no. 7

Gneyd. Construction of church

593/4

Syria 10 (1929), p. 255

Bennaoui. Construction of church

593/4

Pognon, Inscriptions,
no. 19 (p. 55)

Stablat, Jebel el Hass. Construction of
church

(b) Dated Syriac manuscripts of the fifth to sixth centuries
The following table is based on slightly different principles, and for the
most part simply summarizes the content of the magnificent Album
produced by W.H.P. Hatch, and recently re-issued. It covers all those
Syriac manuscripts which are explicitly dated within the fifth and sixth
centuries, whether from east or west of the Euphrates. Obviously,
experts will attribute many other manuscripts written in the Estrangela

THE SYRIAC ACTS OF EPHESUS H

script of the pre-Islamic period to these centuries, on the basis of script
or content. But the explicitly dated ones will serve as a framework, and
to quite a remarkable degree they confirm the pattern indicated by the
inscriptions: there are a few examples from the fifth century, but by far
the majority comes from the sixth. In many, but not all, cases the place
of writing is indicated, and these indications too illustrate a pattern by
which the ‘homeland’ of manuscript writing lies east of the Euphrates,
but by the sixth century production is also common in the Syrian area,
west of the Euphrates (I ignore here details of the late Roman sub¬
divided provinces).

Wright, W. (1870-2), Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum
acquired since 1838 1-III

Mango, M.M. (1982), ‘Patrons and Scribes indicated in Syriac Manuscripts, 411
to 800 AD’, Jahrb. der Ost. Byzantinistik 32.4, 3-12

-(1991), ‘The Production of Syriac Manuscripts 400-700 AD’, in Gugliemo

Cavallo, Giuseppe De Gregorio, and Marilena Maniaci (eds.), Scritture, libri
e testi nelle aree provinciali di Bisanzio (Spoleto) 1:161-79 and PI. I-IX.
Hatch, W.H.P. (1946; ^2002), An Album of Dated Syriac Manuscripts (1946;
reissued with Foreword by L. Van Rompay, Gorgias Press):

Number
in Hatch,
Album

Date Place of writing Contents
(if indicated)

411 Edessa

Greek theological works in translation

459/60

Isaiah 16-17

III

462

Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History

463/4 Amida

Genesis, Exodus

473 Dated by era
of Antioch

Life of Symeon Stylites

474 Edessa

Aphraat, Horn. I-X

VII

509 Pa’nun

Basil, On the Holy Spirit

VIII

510/llMabbug/

Hierapolis

Philoxenus of Mabbug, Commentary
on Matthew and Luke

512

Aphraat, Horn. XIII-XXII

518 Dated by era
of Apamea

Ephraem, Hymns

522

Ephraem, Hymns

XII

528 Edessa

Trans, of Greek theological works

XIII

528/9-

537/8

Gospels of Luke and John

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

XIV

532

Daniel

532

Dated by era
of Bostra

Historia Monachorum

XVI

533/4

Edessa

Pauline Epistles

XVII

534

Palladius, Historia Lausiaca

XVIII

535

KPR’ DBRT’
(near Apamea)

Acts of Council of Ephesus

XIX

540/1

Edessa

Ezekiel

BM Add. 14,431
= Wright (1870),

Samuel I-II

no. XXII
XX

548

Edessa

Four Gospels

XXI

550/1

Trans, of Greek theological works

XXII

552

Sarmin

Ephraem, Hymns

XXIII

553

Edessa

Cyril of Alexandria, On Worship IX-XII

XXIV

557

John Chrysostom, Commentary on
Matthew’s Gospel

XXV

563

Nairab

Severus of Antioch, Homiliae Cathedrales

XXVI

564

Philoxenus of Mabbug, On the Trinity

XXVII

564

Edessa?

Athanasius, On the Incarnation',

Timothy, Homily

XXVIII

565

Edessa

Jacob of Sarug, Metrical Discourses

XXIX

569

Dated by era

Severus of Antioch, Homiliae

of Antioch

Cathedrales

XXX

569

Sarmin

Greek theological works

XXXI

581

John of Lycopolis, selected works

XXXII

581

Philoxenus of Mabbug, Discourses

XXXIII

584

Monastery of

John Chrysostom, Commentary on 1

Gubba Barraya Corinthians

XXXIV

586

Monastery of

Four Gospels [illuminated ms:

Beth-Zagba

facsimile ed. by C. Cechelli, I. Furlani
and M. Salmi, The Rabbula Gospels
(1959)]

XXXV

593

John Chrysostom, Commentary on
Thessalonians

XXXVI

598/9

Joshua

As will be seen, the place of the codex of 535 has been highlighted, to
indicate as clearly as possible the way in which it falls firmly within the
period of established codex-composition in Syriac. Strictly speaking, the

THE SYRIAC ACTS OF EPHESUS H

scribe, when he comes to mention the place of writing and to describe
his own role and services, does not mention any city which would allow
us to establish a location east or west of the Euphrates. But in fact KPR’
DBRT’ can be identified as a monastery near Apamea in Syria (now the
metropolis of Syria Secunda), which establishes this codex as one of a
minority of examples of ‘western’ scribal activity.®

It should be noted that in the page reproduced (designed to bring out
the contrast between the large, formal script of the Acts and the smaller
and more casual writing marking the scribe’s own personal affirmation)
he does not identify himself or his origins. But in the second affirmation
on the next page (108b) he does so: ‘I... lohanan from the chora (KWR’)
of Antiochia, resident with Mar Eusebius of Kapra dBarta, wrote this
text.’ In the light of the lists of inscriptions and codices given above, the
proof that a monk born in the territory of Antioch in the later fifth or
early sixth century could write a long text in Syriac is quite significant.

We will come later to the content of the acts contained in the codex,
but this is the place to set out a translation of the page (108a) reproduced
in the Plate, in which the scribe first concludes the record of the proceed¬
ings with three brief and formal paragraphs before turning, in a smaller
and less monumental script, to the first of his two rather moving personal
affirmations. Of the three paragraphs, the first refers to a letter of
Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria, and the second to the conclusion of the
council, while the third extols the Trinity. So far as possible, the text
which follows reproduces the layout and letter-size of the original.

The translation is as literal as possible, in order to maintain the paral¬
lelism with the Syriac text as reproduced on the Plate (which should be
clear enough for readers of Syriac).^

6 I am grateful to D avid Taylor for the information that this is a well-known monastery,
of some significance situated near the modern villages of Kefr and Bara, north-west
of Apamea. The archimandrite loannes, who is described by the scribe as an ‘adaman¬
tine defensive rampart’ against wolves (see below), commissioned the commentary
on Psalms by Daniel of Salah, an expression of Severan miaphysite theology (see
Taylor 2001), and is listed by Michael the Syrian, Chron. IX.14, among those
condemned by Justinian for his opposition to Chalcedon.

7 I am very grateful for corrections of my draft translation to Alison Salvesen, and to
David Taylor and the members of his Syriac reading class, who generously devoted
a session in Summer 2007 to this text.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

BM Add. 14,530, p. 108a. Conclusion and scribe’s first affirmation

That concludes the letter of the holy Dioscorus,
bishop of Alexandria, which was written
by him to the remainder of the pious bishops.

That concludes the second Synod which met
at Ephesus in the days of the holy and God-loving
Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria,

and in the days of the victorious kings Theodosius and Valentinianus.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Spirit

of Holiness, one perfect mystery

of the glorious Trinity for ever. Amen.

^ This book was finished in the year eight hundred and forty-six by the reck¬
oning

^ of Alexander, in the month lyyar, on the tenth of it, in the holy monastery

^ of the blessed Mar Eusebius of Kapra dBarta, in the days of the excellent
and

God-loving vigilant pastor and wise steersman, lover of strangers,

^ and adamantine defensive rampart made for his flock, so that none should
enter

® from among the ravenous wolves, and injure one from among the innocent
lambs which within

’ his peaceful enclosure are gathered (namely), that of the Mar presbyter and
archimandrite lohanan of that

® monastery. May God - He for whose name he [the scribe] has striven and
produced this book

® for his holy monastery - on that day, a terrible and great day,

when sounds the horn, and the graves are broken open, and the dead arise
and give

praise, and the judgement-seat is set up, the judge takes his seat and the
books are opened, and every man

1^ receives (what he deserves for) what he has done from that upright judge in
whose court there is no

11 regard for appearances - at that moment cause to be heard that voice sweet

I'l and pleasing (saying) ‘In a small thing have you been faithful, enter the joy
of your Lord

THE SYRIAC ACTS OF EPHESUS H

and I will raise you to a great height.’ And may he be counted with Abraham
and Isaac

and Jacob, and all those who are just and righteous in the prayers of the
Blessed One, and of Her (who) bore
God, Mary. Yea and Amen.

Nothing in this affirmation gives a clue to the theological bearing or
current relevance of the acts whose writing is here concluded, not even
the reference to Mary ‘who bore God’. For, as we will see, the original
Nestorian position that Mary could have born the Christos, but not God,
was no longer maintained by anyone within the Roman Empire, and
Justinian’s own utterances of these years were filled with references to
her as the Mother of God. What transpires from the affirmation is
instead a strong expression of personal piety, combined with a hope of
reward at the end of time, and a vivid sense of the monastery as a fron¬
tier against a dangerous world. It is time to turn to the contents of the
codex, with a brief indication of its modern publication- and translation-
history, and a tabulation of what it records.

Acts of Ephesus II, 449, Later Session. Syriac Translation

(a) The Codex ofCE 535, BM Add. 14,530

Wright (1871), Catalogue II, 1027-30 (no. DCCCCV)

Hatch (1946), Plate XVIII

Vellum codex. 108 double-sided leaves (a/b). Single column, of 27-34 lines
per page. Estrangela script. Writing completed in the ‘year 846 by the reck¬
oning of Alexander, on the 10th of the month of lyyar [10 May 535], in the
holy monastery of the blessed lord Eusebius of KPR’ DBRT’ ’ (108a).

(b) Syriac Text and German Translation and Notes

Flemming, J.P.G. (1917), Akten der ephesinischen Synode von Jahre 449,
Syrisch (Abbhandlungen der Kdniglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu
Gottingen, Philologisch-historische Klasse, N.F. XV.l). Printed in the Serta
script which became normal for West Syrians after the beginning of the
Islamic period, and also in modern printed texts

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Martin, L’Abbe (1874), Actes du brigandage d’Ephese. Traduction fade sur
le texte syriaque contenu dans le manuscript 14530 du Musee Britannique
Perry, S.G.F. (1881), The Second Synod of Ephesus, together with Certain
Extracts relating to it, from Syriac MSS. preserved in the British Museum...
Doran, Robert (2006) Stewards of the Poor. The Man of God, Rabbula and
Hiba in Fifth-Century Edessa (2006), 133f. (sections relating to Hiba/Ibas)

(d) Content of Acts

(By page-nos. of codex)

Proceedings at Ephesus

Documents Quoted

4a.

4b-8a.

8b.

8b-10a.

lb-2b.

2b-3b.

3b-4a.

Date and formal heading
List of 113 participants
Verbatim report of interventions.
Non-attendance of Roman
representatives and of Domnus of
Antioch. Beginning of proceedings
against Ibas

Proceedings relating to Ibas

10a-13b

Theodosius and Valentinian III
to Dioscorus of Alexandria, 30
Mar. 449 (Greek original in
ACO II.l.l, para. 24 [pp. 68-9])
Theodosius and Valentinian to
Dioscorus about Theodoret, 6
Aug. 449 (Greek original in
ACO II.l.l, para. 52 [p. 72])
Theodosius and Valentinian to
council calling for deposition of
Ibas of Edessa (Greek original
not preserved)

Records (hypomnemata) of
acclamations {phonal) at
Edessa, April 449

13b-23a. Report {anaphora) of Flavius
Chaereas, praeses of Osrhoene,
on events in Edessa, Apr. 449
23a-38a. Further anaphora of Flavius
Chaereas on events at Edessa,
Apr. 449

THE SYRIAC ACTS OF EPHESUS H

Note esp. 33b.

38b-54a. Proceedings. Phonal.

Deposition of Ibas of Edessa,

Daniel of Carrhae, Irenaeus of
Tyre, Aquilinus of Byblus
Note esp. Syriac Acta 43b: ‘Uranius,
bishop of Hemerium, said, with the
deacon Libanius from Samosata
translating for him [MPSQ LH]...’.
Similarly 48b

54a-57a. Proceedings against Sophronius
of Telia

54a-57b.

57b Proceedings against Theodoret
onwards, of Cyrrhus

57b-61b.

62a-72a.

72b-75b.

75b-78a. Verdicts of 10 bishops. Deposition
(kathairesis)

78b-79a. Proceedings

79b Proceedings against Domnus

onwards, of Antioch

79b-81b.

83a-85a.

85b-89a.

89b-90b.

90b-91b. Further proceedings

92b-96a.

96a-97a.

97a-99a.

During proceedings at Edessa
the comes Theodosius requests
reading of Syriac letter (’GRT’
SWRYYT’) sent by Ibas to
‘Mari the Persian’. Translation
(PWSQ’) of letter read - text in
34a-36b [Greek translation of
original in ACO II.1.3, para.
138, pp. 32^ [391-3], from
Session X/Xl of Chalcedon]

Libellus against Sophronius of
Telia

Libellus against Theodoret
Letter of Theodoret to monks
Extracts from Theodoret’s
Defence of Diodore and
Theodore

Libellus against Domnus
Letter of Domnus to Flavian of
Constantinople
Libelli against Domnus
Testimony {Exomosia) of
presbyter Pelagius

Letter of Dioscorus to Domnus
Letter of Domnus to
Dioscorus

Letter of Dioscorus to Domnus

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

101b-104a.

108a.

108a-b.

99b-101b.

Proceedings. Verdicts of 13
bishops on Domnus

104a-106b.

106b

106b-108a.

Note of conclusion of council
(as above)

Two personal affirmations by
the scribe

Letter of Domnus to
Dioscorus

Two extracts from communi¬
cation of Theodosius (to
Dioscorus?) on decisions of
council. (No Greek original
preserved. Latin version in
ACO 11.3.2, para. 106, pp. 88-
9 [347-8])

Extract from letter of Theo¬
dosius to Juvenal of
Jerusalem (No Greek
original preserved)

Circular letter of unidentified
imperial official on
procedures for enforced
subscription to decisions of
council (No Greek original)

It will be seen that, while the text as preserved begins by quoting the
texts of the initial imperial instructions relating to the council, and
equally ends with a series of official letters marking its conclusion, what
is contained in the record is both extremely selective, and gives no hint
of the proceedings at the first session of the council. In other words it
focuses on the condemnation of a specific group of dyophysite bishops,
all of them from the diocese of Oriens, who had been dealt with at a
subsequent stage of the council.

As regards the formal character of these acts, note first that they
preserve the style of the original Greek, to the extent of reproducing
verbatim the two references to Syriac: in 33b, mentioning the Syriac
letter (‘GRT’ SWRYYT’) of Ibas of Edessa to Mari the Persian, and in
43b recording that Uranius of Hemerium in Osrhoene had a deacon to
translate his spoken intervention for him. The original will also almost
certainly have reproduced in Greek the two reports (anaphorai) of
Flavius Chaereas, the praeses of Osrhoene (13b-38a), which will origi¬
nally have been written in Latin. Since the reproduction of Latin
documents in Latin is a very rare feature of fifth-century conciliar acts.

THE SYRIAC ACTS OF EPHESUS H

at least as they have come down to us, and is found only on one MS of
the Acts of Ephesus I,® we can assume that they had been circulating in
Greek translation, before being now re-translated into Syriac.

The case of the ‘Syriac Letter’ of Ibas is an interesting example of how
the interplay between languages functioned in the late antique Church.
Ibas was bishop of Edessa from 435 onwards (see below), but evidently
wrote this letter, in Syriac, to the unidentified ‘Mari the Persian’, earlier,
while still a presbyter. It gave a strongly critical account of the Council
of Ephesus of 431 and its aftermath, and must count as one of the most
evocative of contemporary responses to the controversy. As we will see
below, at session X/XI of the Council of Chalcedon a Greek translation
of it was read out, and it is evident that at Ephesus II it had also been a
Greek translation which was read - or at least referred to in the course
of quoting earlier exchanges at Edessa (see above). The Syriac record in
the codex of 535 faithfully records that this was a translation (PWSQ’)
before producing the text in Syriac. Though we must allow for the possi¬
bility that the original text was still in circulation in the sixth century, and
that a copy of it was inserted at this point, it is far more likely that
whoever made the overall translation (whether the scribe himself or
someone else) simply re-translated the text from the Greek of the acts.
So it is very likely that, while we thus have a Syriac text of a letter written
in Syriac, we do not have the original Syriac.

These acts follow the structure of the known Greek Acts of Ephesus
I and II and Chalcedon in two important respects. First, they begin with
three letters of Theodosius either summoning the council or giving direc¬
tions concerning it, all written prior to the opening. In two cases the
Greek original is available for comparison, and in the third not. Second,
they conclude with two imperial letters, and one from an official, all
written after the conclusion of proceedings (none of these three survives
in Greek, but one is known in a Latin version). As always, precisely what
other relevant material should be added to the text of a report of
conciliar proceedings was a matter of editorial discretion, relating to the
purpose of the record in question.

The proceedings as recorded here do not have the formal character of
the record of Chalcedon, where each session is both numbered (even if

8 For the distinctive character of this codex of the 13th century, edited by Schwartz in
ACO 1.1.7 see Millar (2004), esp. 117-119, and Millar (2006), 243. The acts of the
synods held in Constantinople in 536, edited by Schwartz in ACO III (1940), incor¬
porate a considerably higher proportion of Latin in the original: see Millar (2008).

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

differently in the Greek and the Latin) and given a date. A date is indeed
provided (4a), namely the Egyptian month Mesore 29 (= 22 August).
But whether all of the proceedings recorded here took place on that day
is not clear. Secondly, as Hans Lietzmann pointed out in the introduc¬
tion to Flemming’s edition (p. v), with acknowledgement to notes by G.
Hoffmann (reproduced ibid., p. 163), the proceedings (p. 6b) refer to an
earlier session on a Sunday (hence 20 August) at which the Roman dele¬
gates and Domnus of Antioch had not been present. This is therefore,
obviously enough, distinct from the initial session held on 8 August, and
the upshot is that we do not know how many sessions there were at
Ephesus II (any more than at Ephesus I), nor whether more than one
are the subject of the Syriac proceedings.

Thirdly, what is immediately obvious from the tabulation above is that
the form of the Syriac proceedings (like the Greek ones of both Ephesus
II and Chalcedon) involves extensive quotation of pre-existing docu¬
ments, including the records (hypomnemata) of acclamations (phonai)
at Edessa (10a-13b), or the two reports (anaphorai) of Flavius Chaereas,
the governor of Osrhoene, addressed to higher officials (13b-38a).
These extensive secular documents apart, in the course of the rest of the
proceedings we find the text of four libelli of complaint, one each against
Sophronius of Telia and Theodore! of Cyrrhus, and two against Domnus
of Antioch. There are also four letters between Domnus and Dioscorus
of Alexandria, one from Domnus to Flavian of Constantinople, an affir¬
mation (exomosia) by a presbyter, and extracts from a theological work
by Theodoret. The proceedings themselves, tabulated in the left-hand
column, lead to the condemnation of Ibas of Edessa, Daniel of Carrhae,
Irenaeus of Tyre, Aquilinus of Byblus, Sophronius of Telia, Theodoret
of Cyrrhus and Domnus of Antioch. The political and ecclesiastical
context of these accusations and subsequent depositions is entirely Near
Eastern, concerning the provinces of Osrhoene, Euphratesia, Syria and
Phoenicia. But while reading the Syriac record of these heated
exchanges, at certain points referring back to mass public demonstra¬
tions on the streets of Edessa, we have (as above) to remember that this
Syriac record is in itself a secondary by-product of proceedings originally
conducted in Greek in the heart of the late antique world, in Ephesus,
and derive from a record in Greek of a council whose primary focus had
been the acquittal of Eutyches and the condemnation of Flavian. But, as
regards this group of strictly Near Eastern conflicts, fought out over one
or more later sessions at Ephesus, what had been their background, and
why was the record of them still relevant in 535? It will be sufficient, for

THE SYRIAC ACTS OF EPHESUS H

the purpose of putting contents of the codex of 535 in context, to tabu¬
late the key events of 431-451.®

The Historical Context: from Ephesus I to Chalcedon

431 Rabbula of Edessa supports Cyril of Alexandria at the time of the
First Council of Ephesus. Theodoret supports Nestorius (who is
deposed, and later exiled)

432 Rabbula of Edessa changes sides, to support Council

433? Ibas, as presbyter, writes ‘Letter to Mari the Persian’ in Syriac,
giving Nestorian viewpoint

435 Ibas succeeds Rabbula (many pro-Nestorian bishops deposed;

Theodoret retains his see)

448 Four presbyters at Edessa accuse Ibas of Nestorianism, and finan¬

cial malpractice, and appeal to Theodosius II. Theodosius orders
setting-up of ecclesiastical court to examine charges; orders
Theodoret not to leave Cyrrhus

Feb. 449 Court holds hearings in Tyre and Berytus (Greek Acts preserved
in AGO II.1.3, pp. 19-37 [378-96], see below)

Apr. 449 Accusations and popular agitation against Ibas in Edessa (Syriac
Acts, as above)

Aug. 449 Second Council of Ephesus. Condemnation of Ibas, Daniel of
Carrhae, Irenaeus (already deposed as bishop of Tyre), Aquilinus
of Byblus, Sophronius of Telia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Domnus of
Antioch (Syriac Acts, as above)

July 450 Theodosius II dies
Aug. 450 Marcian becomes emperor

Oct. 451 Council of Chalcedon (ACO II.1.3; Price and Gaddis, vol. 2, pp.
250-7):

Oct. 26. Session IX (Greek Acts)/VIII (Latin Acts). Theodoret,
Sophronius of Telia, John of Germanicia and Amphilochius of Side
reinstated on condition of anathematizing Nestorius and/or Euty-
ches as heretics), ACO II.1.3, pp. 7-11 [360-70]

Oct. 26. Session X/IX. Case of Ibas of Edessa. Initial hearing (pp.
11-16 [370-5])

Oct. 26. Session XI/X. Ibas of Edessa. Hearing and readmission
(extensive acts, pp. 16^2 [375-401]: with memorandum

(hypomnestikon) of Theodosius II appointing ecclesiastical court

9 For the essentials see Frend (1972); Pietri (1998), eh. 1; Acerbi (2001); Price and
Gaddis (2005), II, 265-70; Doran (2006).

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

in 448 (para. 27, see above), hearings at Tyre and Berytus in early
449 (paras. 28-137, see above). Greek version (eppriveXa) of Ibas’
‘Letter to Mari the Persian’ (para. 138); petition in favour of Ibas
from clergy of Edessa - 65 subscriptions, of which 18 are recorded
as having been in Syriac or also in Syriac: ical hjtOYPcxct)!! SupiaKt)
(para. 141); conclusion of proceedings and restoration of Ibas
(paras. 142-81)

It will be seen at once that, in these cases as in others, the Council of
Chalcedon functioned to produce a straightforward reversal of the deci¬
sions of Ephesus II, held only two years before. It did not as such
reconsider the condemnation of Nestorius, who was still alive, in exile in
the Great Oasis. But, in following the theological line set out in the
famous Tome of Leo of Rome, addressed to Flavian of Constantinople
in June 449, and in incorporating in the Definition of Faith adopted at
Session VI the words ‘in two natures’, it gave rise to accusations of
having adopted a Nestorian Christology, and, while gaining support in
some areas of the Near East, also led to deeply-felt opposition on the
part of those committed to a one-nature Christology, and to divisions in
the Church which have never healed.

This is not the place to attempt an account of the theological divisions
which marked the century following Chalcedon, even if the author were
qualified to do so. But, to put the codex of 535 in context, it can be said
that Nestorius himself ceased to be a prime subject of controversy, and
his condemnation was never challenged. Instead, the focus came to be
on the theological writers who were seen as the source of a two-nature
Christology, Diodore of Tarsus and more particularly Theodore of
Mopsuestia (who had died in 428, just when Nestorius began his brief
period as bishop of Constantinople), along with Theodoret (and in
particular his polemical writings against Cyril of Alexandria), and the
Letter of Ibas to Mari the Persian. It was to be the work of these last
three which was subsequently the subject of the ‘Three Chapters’
controversy under Justinian, culminating in the Council of Constan¬
tinople in 553.

THE SYRIAC ACTS OF EPHESUS H

Christological Disputes under Justinian, and the Background to the
‘Three Chapters’ Controversy (over Theodore of Mopsuestia,
Theodoret and Ibas)

It may be allowable to pick out a few significant moments in the conflicts
of the earlier sixth century between the followers of a one-nature Chris-
tology, led by the major figure of Severus, patriarch of Antioch in
512-18, and the Chalcedonians, before once again tabulating the
sequence of events in the 530s which provide the immediate context for
the production of the codex2°

The reign of Anastasius (491-518) had generally been favourable for
the miaphysite side, and it was an important step when Severus, in his
initial address {prosphonesis) in 512, chose to anathematize, as
dyophysite, Diodore and Theodore ‘the masters of Nestorius’, along
with Theodoret, Andrew (of Samosata), Ibas, Alexander (of Hierapolis)
and others (Patrologia Orientalis II, 322-5, no. viii). To do so was
precisely to focus on the issues and personalities of the 420s-450s. Under
Justin (518-27), there came a strong pro-Chalcedonian reaction, in
which Severus and others were deposed and went into hiding, followed
however, under Justinian (527-65), first by a serious effort at compro¬
mise, in which the emperor as an individual was deeply involved, and
then, in 536, by a determined imperial rejection of the miaphysite posi¬
tion and its advocates. Even after that, however, there followed a
movement for the condemnation of the Three Chapters (the works of
Theodore, Theodoret and Ibas), aimed at ridding the Chalcedonian, or
‘neo-Chalcedonian’, position of all theological taint of Nestorianism, but
meeting strong resistance, not least in the recently reconquered Latin
Africa; hence two significant contemporary polemical works in Latin,
the Breviarium Causae Nestorianorum et Eutychianorum of Liberatus,^^
and the much more substantial Pro defensione trium capitulorum of
Facundus of Hermiane.^^ However, this important debate, leading up to
the Fifth Ecumenical Council of 553, need not concern us here, and we
may return to the 530s, with its striking testimonies to the personal theo¬
logical commitment of Justinian:

10 See esp. Frend (1972), ch. 7; Brock (1981); Maraval (1998); Grillmeier-FIainthaler
(1995), esp. 344-55; Chadwick (2001), ch. 55; Gray (2005); Di Berardino (2006), 53-
90; Price (2007).

11 Text printed by Schwartz in ACO 2.5, pp. 98-141.

12 Edited by I.-M. Clement and R.V. Plaetse, CCSL 90A (Turnhout, 1974).

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

532

15 March, 533

26 March, 533

6 June,533

534/5

536

Aug. 6, 536

Address of miaphysite monks to Justinian, see Ps-Zacharias,
HE. IX, 15 (ed. Brooks, CSCO IIL6, p. 80; partial trans. in
Frend, Rise, pp. 362-6), with criticism of material drawn from
Leo of Rome, Nestorius, Theodore, Diodore, Theodoret and
the Acts of Chalcedon.

Meetings between miaphysite delegation from Syria and Chal-
cedonian bishops in Constantinople, with some participation by
Justinian in person. Ps-Zacharias, HE IX.15; Innocentius of
Maronea, ACO IV.2, pp. 169-84; two Syriac MSS, Harvard Syr.
22 and BMAdd. 12155 {PO XIII, pp. 192-6), the former edited,
and both translated, by Brock 1981.

Profession of faith by Justinian, addressed to the people of
Constantinople and twelve other cities, with denunciation of
the heresies of Nestorius, Eutyches and Apollinarius, CJ 1.1.6.
Letter of Justinian to Epiphanius, archbishop and ‘ecumenical
patriarch’ of Constantinople. Orthodoxy declared to be as laid
down at Nicaea, and followed by the three further Councils,
Constantinople, Ephesus I and Chalcedon, C/1.1.7.

Letter of Justinian to Johannes, bishop of Rome {CJ 1.1.8, 7-
24), and Johannes’ reply, March, 534 {CJ 1.1.8, 1-6; 25-39 =
Collectio Avellana, CSEL XXXV, no. 84).

Severus of Antioch (in exile) persuaded to visit Constantinople;
miaphysite Theodosius becomes patriarch of Alexandria;
Anthimus becomes patriarch of Constantinople, and is then
condemned, see Zacharias HE IX.19.

Anthimus leaves office or is deposed, and is regarded as having
been influenced by Severus and Theodosius in moving to a
miaphysite position. Synodos endemousa (Home Synod)
meeting in five successive sessions in Constantinople in May-
June. Acts quoted in those of subsequent synod of Jerusalem,
536, ACO III, para. 42 (pp. 123-89).

Letter of Justinian to Menas, archbishop and ‘ecumenical patri¬
arch’ of Constantinople, confirming the deposition of
Anthimus, the authority of the four ecumenical councils,
anathema on Severus and the banning of his works; barred from
Constantinople and all other cities. Condemnation of Peter of
Apamea, with similar ban, also applied to monk Zoaras, see
Justinian, Novella 42 = ACO III, para. 41 (pp. 119-23).

These bare details, accompanied by a listing of a few of the key docu¬
ments, will be sufficient to make clear that the Syriac codex of the Acts
of Ephesus II was written exactly at the moment when the miaphysite

THE SYRIAC ACTS OF EPHESUS H

side had gained influence in both Constantinople and Alexandria, and
at which Severus, as the long-deposed bishop of Antioch, had finally
come to Constantinople and was enjoying a degree of imperial favour
there, only for fortune to change drastically in the following year, with
the anathema on Severus, and the banning of his works by a Synodos
endemousa (Home Synod) at Constantinople being confirmed by
Justinian.

Along with that of Severus came the condemnation and deposition of
Peter of Apamea, deposed in 518, but clearly still influential, who had
been one of the delegation of six miaphysites who came to Constan¬
tinople for the discussions of 532, and was evidently a leading figure in
this cause. Whether that explains the miaphysite commitment of the
monastery near Apamea where the Syriac codex was written is of course
uncertain, since there could be conflicting, and changing, opinions
within dioceses.

Paradoxically, as mentioned briefly above, Justinian’s final commit¬
ment to the defence of Chalcedon and to the rejection of the miaphysite
position did not end the relevance of the acts recalling the condemna¬
tion of Ibas, Theodoret and others at Ephesus in 449. For, as we have
seen, the debate over the Three Chapters was an attempt by the now
dominant Chalcedonians, or ‘neo-Chalcedonians’, to rid themselves of
any taint of Nestorianism, and (unsuccessfully) to conciliate miaphysite
opinion, by dissociating themselves from the figures concerned, and
their most salient works - the Three Chapters of Ibas, Theodoret and
Theodore. As it happens, we know more about the debate over these
three theologians as it took place in Constantinople and Africa under
Justinian than we do about any role which the beautifully written Syriac
codex may have played in its bilingual, Greek and Syriac, local setting.
But its potential value, as a moving personal expression of Christian
faith, as a reflection of miaphysite commitment in the Syria of the 530s,
and as the carefully-selected record of an earlier moment of miaphysite
dominance, is perfectly clear. So also is its significance as testimony to
the step-by-step establishment of Syriac as a recognized language of
Christian culture along with Greek in the provinces west of the
Euphrates.

13 I am very grateful to the editors for corrections and guidance, as also to Alison
Salvesen and David Taylor - and to Dr Williams’ Library, Gordon Square, London,
for the prolonged loan of the priceless (and very rare) work of Perry (1881).

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

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THE SYRIAC ACTS OF EPHESUS H

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Language, Religion and Culture’, Mediterranean Archaeology 11:159-76.

- (2004), ‘Repentant Heretics in Fifth-Century Lydia: Identity and

Literacy’, Scripta Classica Israelica 23:111-30.

-(2006), A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II

(408-450) (Berkeley).

- (2008), ‘Rome, Constantinople and the Near Eastern Church under

Justinian: Two Synods of 536’, JRS 98: 62-82.

Perry, S.G.F. (1881), The Second Synod of Ephesus (London).

Pietri, Luce (ed.), (1998), Histoire du Christianisme III. Les Eglises d’Orient et
d’Occident (Paris).

Pognon, Henri (1907), Inscriptions Semitiques de la Syrie, de la Mesopotamie et
de la region de Mossoul (Paris).

Price, Richard and Gaddis, Michael (2005), The Acts of the Council of Chal-
cedon, 3 vols, TTH 45 (Liverpool).

Price, R.M. (2007), ‘The Three Chapters Controversy and the Council of Chal-
cedon’, in Chazelle, C., and Cubitt, C. (eds). The Crisis of the Oikoumene.-
The Three Chapters and the Failed Quest for Unity in the Sixth-Century
Mediterranean (Turnhout), 17-37.

Taylor, D.G.T. (2001), ‘The Christology of the Syriac Psalm Commentary (AD
541/2) of Daniel of Salah and the Phantasiast Controversy’, in Wiles, M.F.,
and Yarnold, E.J. (eds), StP 35: 508-15.

- (2002), ‘Bilingualism and Diglossia in Late Antique Syria and

Mesopotamia’, in Adams, J.N., Janse, J., and Swain, S. (eds.). Bilingualism
in Ancient Society: language contact and the written word (Oxford), 298-331.

Wright, William (1870-2), Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts in the British
Museum acquired since 1838 (London) I-III.

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON (451):
A NARRATIVE

Richard Price

Before the Council

The conventional opening date for the Christological controversy of the
fifth century of which the climax was the Council of Chalcedon is the
arrival at Constantinople in 428 of its new archbishop, Nestorius, a
Syrian monk, who publicly criticized the ascription to the Virgin Mary
of the title Theotokos (Mother of God). The issue was not the status of
the Virgin but the question who it was who was born of her - a human
being, united to the Godhead but yet distinct from it (as Nestorius
supposed), or God the Word himself, who, in the words of St Paul, ‘being
in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but
emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness
of men.’^ Opposition to Nestorius was led by Archbishop Cyril of
Alexandria, who spotted the opportunity to humiliate the upstart see of
Constantinople but was also genuinely shocked by Nestorius’ stance -
not out of any special devotion to the Virgin,^ but because of his own
emphasis on God the Word made flesh as the one personal subject in
Christ and as the one to whom we are united in holy communion. The
controversy led to the condemnation of Nestorius at the First Council of
Ephesus (431), which was wildly popular in Ephesus itself (after the vote
Cyril was escorted to his lodgings by women swinging thuribles)^ but
deeply resented in Syria. The rest of the decade saw the frustration of
Cyril’s further plans, as he was obliged by the emperor in 433 to accept
the ‘Formula of Reunion’, an ambiguous profession of faith drawn up
by Nestorius’ allies, and in 439 to call off his campaign to secure the
condemnation of the views of Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428), credited
with having been Nestorius’ teacher.^^

1 Phil 2:6-7.

2 See Price (2007), esp. 64-5.

3 Cyril, ep. 24, ACO 1.1.1, p. 118, 8-9.

4 For the campaign by Cyril and Archbishop Proclus of Constantinople to force the
Syrian bishops to disown Theodore see Chadwick (2001), 548-51 and Price, pp. 124-7
below.

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON: A NARRATIVE 71

Dioscorus, Cyril’s successor in the see of Alexandria (444-51), deter¬
mined to achieve the total victory that had eluded his predecessor. He
got his chance when his opponents overplayed their hand. In 448
Flavian, the new archbishop of Constantinople (446-9), chaired a ‘home
synod’ of available bishops at Constantinople, where Bishop Eusebius
of Dorylaeum, a heresy-hunter who as a layman had opposed Nestorius
twenty years before, brought an accusation of heresy against Eutyches,
a senior and respected archimandrite in the city and an ally of Dioscorus;
Eutyches was duly condemned and excommunicated for refusing to
acknowledge two natures in Christ after the union. Eutyches was loyal
to the tradition of Cyril of Alexandria, who, while acknowledging that
Christ possessed the fullness of both Godhead and manhood, had always
rejected a formal acknowledgement of two natures after the union, as
suggesting the Nestorian heresy of splitting Christ into two distinct
beings.^ Flavian put on an act of impartial chairmanship and pastoral
solicitude, saying of the absent Eutyches at one point, ‘Let him come
here: he will come to fathers and brothers, to people who are not igno¬
rant of him and who even now persevere in friendship’ (Acts I. 417). But
once Eutyches appeared at the hearing, Flavian took off the mask,
harassing the unfortunate archimandrite and pressing him to profess two
natures after the union, the deed of condemnation already drawn up and
in his pocket.'’

A second Ecumenical Council of Ephesus was convened in August
449 to repair the scandal. Eutyches’ condemnation was annulled. Flavian
and Eusebius were condemned and deposed, not unreasonably, for
imposing an improper doctrinal test.^ Dioscorus acted as chairman, and
took the opportunity to secure the total victory over Syrian sympathizers
with Nestorius that had eluded Cyril in the 430s: Theodoret of Cyrrhus,
Ibas of Edessa and other Syrian bishops sympathetic to Nestorius were
all deposed, as well as their superior Bishop Domnus of Antioch, who
had given them protection.* But the council was fatally undermined by

5 The charge of denying Christ’s true humanity has been made against Eutyches ever
since Leo’s Tome of 449, but the evidence does not support it. See Draguet (1931).

6 All this was disguised in the minutes of the synod but revealed at an investigation in
the following year. See Price and Gaddis, 1,116-7.

7 The acts of the first session, at which Eutyches was restored and Flavian and Euse¬
bius condemned, were included in the minutes of the first session of Chalcedon, Acts
I. 68-1067.

8 For this later stage of the council we are dependent on the Syriac Acts, for which see
pp. 45-67 above.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Roman opposition. The Roman delegates at the council presented a
letter from Pope Leo condemning Eutyches; the council received the
document but ignored the request that it be read.^ When the bishops
proceeded to condemn Flavian, Deacon Hilary (one of the papal
legates) attempted to exercise a veto, but was ignored.Subsequently
Theodosius II confirmed the decrees of the council, but Pope Leo and
the western emperor, Valentinian III, refused to accept them. The result
was schism between east and west; even without the sudden death from
a riding accident of Theodosius II on 28 July 450 this could not have been
tolerated indefinitely. With the accession of Marcian and his consort
Pulcheria (a frequent correspondent of Leo’s and a good friend of the
Roman see), the court of Constantinople swung to a pro-Roman policy.
The bishops deposed at Ephesus were instructed to return to their sees,“
though their formal reinstatement had to wait for a new council. Impe¬
rial fiat, however, simply overrode Ephesus IPs acquittal of Eutyches:
he was again deposed, and vanishes from history.^^ Even Dioscorus
abandoned him: he remained loyal to the faith of Ephesus II, and even
(in autumn 451) declared Pope Leo excommunicate, but he was not
ready to go to the stake in support of a mere presbyter.

Archbishop Anatolius, Flavian’s successor at Constantinople, and
Bishop Maximus, Domnus’ successor at Antioch, had both been agents
of Dioscorus, but now, like weathercocks, followed the change of the
wind; both pressed the bishops in their areas of authority to sign Leo’s
Tome, a letter written to Archbishop Flavian in June 449, condemning
Eutyches with more eloquence than truth.^"^ As Leo perceived, accept¬
ance of the Tome throughout the east would be enough to end the schism
and clarify the doctrine on Christ. Marcian, however, determined on a
new ecumenical council, to settle any remaining doubts about the
doctrinal issue. After his experience of Ephesus II Leo had no enthu¬
siasm for councils, but yielded to the imperial will, agreeing to send

9 Acts of Chalcedon, I. 83-5, 958.

10 Acts I. 964.

11 See Leo, ep. 77 (a letter from Pulcheria), in Price and Gaddis, 1, 93-4.

12 During Chalcedon he took refuge in Jerusalem, according to Pelagius, In defensione,
pp. 2-3, and was still alive in 454, according to Leo, ep. 134.

13 Dioscorus said at Chalcedon, ‘If Eutyches holds opinions contrary to the doctrines of
the church, he deserves not only punishment but hell fire’ (Acts 1.168). Cp. the state¬
ment of the Council of Antioch of 341 (accused of Arian sympathies), ‘We have not
become followers of Arius, for how shall we, who are bishops, follow a presbyter?’
(Socrates, Hist. Eccl. 11.10.4).

14 See Leo, ep. 88, in Price and Gaddis, 1,102.

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON: A NARRATIVE 73

representatives - three clergy from Italy, headed by Bishop Paschasinus
of Lilybaeum (in Sicily). Leo presumed that Paschasinus would chair the
council; in fact, he chaired only the third session.

The location chosen for the council was Nicaea,^® with the intention
that the new council would be seen as a second Nicaea, confirming and
perfecting the work of the first and most revered of the ecumenical coun¬
cils; here in September 451 the bishops assembled, numbering some
370,^’ which made this gathering the largest council in the history of the
early Church. And there for a few weeks they waited, while Marcian was
distracted by the troubles in the Balkans, devastated by Hunnic raids.
We may presume that during this period more and more bishops signed
Leo’s Tome; it was perhaps in reaction to this that Dioscorus, who had
bravely come from Alexandria with 19 other Egyptian bishops, declared
Leo excommunicate. Letting, however, symbolism yield to practicality,
Marcian changed the venue from Nicaea to Chalcedon, a small city
within sight of Constantinople, on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus. The
church of St Euphemia was large enough to accommodate the public
sessions, which, if we include a rough estimate of the minor clergy who
will have accompanied their bishops, may have added up to around a
thousand persons.^® Here on 8 October the council finally opened.
Almost all its public sessions were chaired by a group of high govern¬
ment officials, and in practice by their leader, the patrician and general
Anatolius. As magister militum praesentalis he was one of the two
commanders of the central imperial armies, and (in the words of Ste.
Croix) ‘may have been second in the whole Eastern Empire only to the
great Aspar’, the power behind the throne. As Ste. Croix piously adds,
his recent experience of negotiating with Attila (in 447 and 450)
equipped him well for dealing with a council of bishops.^®

15 See the letters of Leo in Price and Gaddis, I, 94-107.

16 See Marcian’s letters to the council prior to its opening, Price and Gaddis, 1,107-10.

17 The attendance lists attached to the sessions are mainly bogus, and our essential
evidence are the lists of signatories of the council’s Definition of the Faith, which
contain their own problems (see pp. 102-3 below). For details of the calculation of
‘around 370’ see Price and Gaddis, III, 193-6.

18 MacMullen (2006), 79 estimates that the proportion of accompanying clergy to
bishops would regularly have been somewhat over two to one and sometimes higher
still. It was only bishops, or clergy representing absent bishops, who had the right to
speak and vote.

19 Ste. Croix (2006), 289-91. He justly complains that previous historians of Chalcedon
have paid him far too little attention. He remains a colourless figure, but his role at
the council was crucial.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

The Early Sessions

At the first session on 8 October 451, as in a modern British parliament,
the rival factions sat facing each other, with the supporters of Dioscorus
on one side and his opponents on the other (Acts I. 4). The session was
largely taken up by a reading of the minutes of the first session of
Ephesus II, at which Eutyches had been reinstated and Bishops Flavian
and Eusebius condemned. Dioscorus found himself cast as defendant
with the acts of Ephesus II treated as evidence against him. 119 of the
bishops present at Chalcedon had participated in Ephesus II and signed
its decrees;^” they now claimed that they had done so only under duress.
But even they had to admit that they bore a share of responsibility, and
were reduced to abject cries of repentance, ‘We all sinned, we all beg
forgiveness’ (Acts I. 181-4). Dioscorus, however, maintained his
courage and dignity; he alone, in the words of Otto Seeck, ‘behaved like
a man in this collection of howling old women.As the hours passed,
the reading continued, interrupted by episcopal interjections (e.g., by
Eusebius of Dorylaeum, ‘He lied! There is no such decree; there is no
canon that states this’. Acts I. 158). After a time the interjections in the
written record cease: were the bishops getting weary? Most probably,
however, large barren tracts of the Acts of Ephesus II were simply taken
as read, although given in full in the minutes published subsequently, to
form a complete dossier to prove Dioscorus’ guilt.^^ Early on in the
session the great majority of his supporters deserted him, literally
crossing the floor, including even four of his Egyptian suffragans, who
were later to find themselves in a tiny and despised minority when they
returned home (Acts I. 284-98). Finally, at the end of the session,
without asking the bishops for their opinion, the lay chairman delivered
his verdict: Dioscorus and the five other bishops who had played a
leading role at Ephesus II were deposed, subject to imperial ratification
of the verdict; meanwhile the bishops approved the decision by accla¬
mation (I. 1068-71). The agenda for the following session were also set
- an examination of the doctrinal issue.

Two days later, 10 October, the bishops duly reassembled. It is clear
that they expected the doctrinal issue to be settled simply by a formal
approval of Leo’s Tome; a precedent was provided by Ephesus I (431)

20 So Honigmann (1942/3), 40.

211 derive this quotation from Ste. Croix (2006), 314.
22 See Price and Gaddis, 1,112, n. 2.

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON: A NARRATIVE 75

and Ephesus II (449), which had settled doctrinal debate by the simple
procedure of approving existing documents and deposing dissentients.
To their alarm and amazement, however, the government now revealed
its hand: the task it set the bishops was to draw up a new definition of
the faith. The bishops protested vigorously: such a new definition was
quite uncalled for, and was arguably contrary to Canon 7 of Ephesus I,
which had forbidden the production and use of any creed apart from the
Nicene Creed of 325.^^ There followed a reading of authoritative docu¬
ments - the Nicene Creed, the Constantinopolitan Creed, two doctrinal
letters of Cyril of Alexandria ‘confirmed’ at Ephesus I - his Second
Letter to Nestorius and his Laetentur caeli letter to John of Antioch
accepting the Formula of Reunion^'* -, and the Tome of Leo. The
Constantinopolitan Creed was a free version of the Nicene, and was
attributed to the Council of Constantinople of 381. This council had not
hitherto been considered of ecumenical status, and few of the bishops
will have been aware that a creed was attributed to it.^^ The production
of this document at this particular juncture was probably intended to
provide a precedent for supplementing the Nicene Creed. But this,
wisely, was not said, and the bishops were happy to approve any
orthodox document that might serve to define orthodoxy without
requiring them to produce a new definition.

The readings went smoothly apart from that of the Tome of Leo,
which was interrupted several times by bishops who had, till the middle
of the first session, been supporting Dioscorus (Acts II. 24-6).^® Objec¬
tions against the orthodoxy of the document were countered by its
supporters, who produced quotations from Cyril of Alexandria in line,
they claimed, with the Tome. It was agreed that Archbishop Anatolius
of Constantinople should hold a meeting of the bishops where the prob¬
lems over the Tome could be thrashed out. One of the bishops urged

23 See Acts II. 3-7, and Acts I. 943 for Canon 7 of Ephesus.

24 This second letter was written many months after Ephesus I, but because it resolved
the impasse that resulted from the council it came to be treated as one of the concil’s
decrees.

25 For a discussion of the origin of the so-called Creed of Constantinople see Kelly
(1972), 296-331. It was but one of a family of creeds based on the original Nicene
Creed and not regarded as new creeds; see Price and Gaddis, II, 191^.

26 It is striking that Leo’s critics included the bishops of Illyricum, who were subject to
his authority, mediated through the papal vicar in the Balkans, the bishop of Thessa-
lonica. Perhaps because of his invidious position, mediating between Rome and his
obstreperous suffragans. Bishop Anastasius of Thessalonica did not attend the
council.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

that the Tome be compared to Cyril’s Third Letter to Nestorius,
containing the Twelve Chapters, an aggressive statement of his anti-
Nestorian position and particularly dear to the uncompromising
Cyrillians. His suggestion was recorded but ignored; throughout the
council supreme authority after the creeds themselves was accorded to
the two letters of Cyril mentioned above, ‘confirmed’ at Ephesus I, but
the Third Letter was not deemed to be among them7^ Further dissen¬
sion was revealed when the same bishops who had been criticizing Leo’s
Tome clamoured for the reinstatement of the six bishops, including
Dioscorus, who had been deposed at the previous session. The session
ended with the chairman, in blithe disregard of the opposition he had
encountered, declaring his proposals passed - which included the setting
up of a committee to draft a new definition.

By the end of the session it was clear that the deposition of Dioscorus
and his chief allies had seriously divided the council. Quite apart from
the continued presence at the council of a small but vocal minority of
bishops, largely from Illyricum and Palestine, who boldly opposed the
ecclesiastical policy of the government, we may presume that not only
the six bishops (all metropolitans) who had been deposed at the first
session but virtually all their suffragans were now absenting themselves
from the meetings.^^ Councils were supposed to make their decisions by
general consensus, not by majority vote; so the effect of this was to cast
doubt on the authority of whatever decrees the council might come to
issue. The decision by the lay chairman to depose the six bishops at the
end of the first session threatened to undermine the whole work of the
council.

The next two sessions of the council succeeded, however, in putting it
back on course. The chairman’s hasty verdict was reinterpreted as a
provisional verdict, requiring ratification by the bishops. Accordingly
the third session was devoted to a formal trial of Dioscorus by the
bishops, chaired not by the patrician Anatolius (this was the only full
session of the council that he did not chair) but by the senior Roman
delegate, Paschasinus of Lilybaeum, who always spoke in Latin but
presumably understood enough Greek for the purpose.^® The govern¬
ment wished to create the impression of a fair trial of Dioscorus by his
peers; the pretence that the outcome was not pre-determined was

27 See pp. 117-19 below.

28 See pp. 103-4 below.

29 Note Acts III. 4, ‘Paschasinus... said in Latin’. See Schwartz (1933).

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON: A NARRATIVE 77

pushed so far that at the following fourth session the lay chairman
rebuked the bishops for deposing Dioscorus without reference to the
imperial will (Acts IV. 12). The trial is fully recorded in the acts, which
give a fuller account of this session than of any of the others (except the
first), doubtless to prove that proper judicial procedures were followed.
Dioscorus received the standard threefold summons, but he chose to
absent himself, surely not out of cowardice, still less a guilty conscience,
but to spare his supporters; his absence enabled them to approve his
deposition on the ground that he had not responded to a threefold
summons, without commenting on the rights of the case. Four witnesses
from Alexandria were produced, who read out carefully prepared state¬
ments (all manifestly drafted by the same government secretary, who, it
is clear, thoroughly enjoyed his work), accusing Dioscorus of perse¬
cuting the relatives and close associates of his predecessor Cyril (Acts
III. 47-64); it appears that Dioscorus’ ‘offence’ had been to make them
disgorge wealth they had improperly purloined out of church funds, but
the effect of these charges must have damaged Dioscorus’ standing
among the pro-Cyrillian majority at the council. No other charges were
presented at this session (graver matters had been aired at the first
session), and there was no discussion of the charges. Finally the bishops
proceeded to pass sentence; 192 council fathers spoke in turn,
condemning Dioscorus. What exactly did they condemn him for?^“ Most
of the episcopal verdicts simply mention his non-attendance, but a few
(very few) refer to specific offences, notably his treatment of Arch¬
bishop Flavian at Ephesus II. At the first session of the council Eusebius
of Dorylaeum had accused him of heresy, and both during the council
and subsequently his enemies were to speak of him as a heretic whose
views as well as person stood condemned; but it could equally be
claimed, as Archbishop Anatolius was to claim at the fifth session (Acts
V. 14), that Dioscorus had been deposed for misconduct but not for
heresy. In all, almost half the bishops at the council absented themselves
from Dioscorus’ trial, and those who did attend agreed to differ over
what they were condemning him for. Count Candidianus, the emperor’s
representative at Ephesus I, declared at the time that Nestorius was
condemned at that council ‘without any trial, examination and investi¬
gation’;^^ the condemnation of Dioscorus was equally a travesty of

30 See the full analysis in Price and Gaddis, II, 30-34.

31 ACO 1.1.5, p. 120, 30-2.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

justice. The St Athanasius of his age, he deserves his place in the Coptic
martyrology.^^

Four days later (17 October) there followed the fourth session of the
council. Its principal task was to pass judgement on the orthodoxy of the
Tome of Leo. It was reported that since the acrimonious discussion at
the second session a meeting had been held as agreed in the palace of
Archbishop Anatolius, at which the Roman delegates had managed to
reassure the Illyrian and Palestinian critics of the Tome. 161 bishops in
turn, with monotonous repetition, expressed the view that the Tome was
in accord with the creeds and with the proceedings at Ephesus I, by
which they meant the Second Letter of Cyril to Nestorius, which had
been formally approved at that council; the remaining bishops present
expressed agreement by acclamation. It is striking that the Tome was
approved because it agreed with Cyril’s letter; throughout the council it
was Cyril not Leo who was seen as the determinant voice of orthodoxy.
As propaganda for the government line that Leo and Cyril were in
perfect accord, the minutes of this session are less than compelling: the
content of the Tome was not discussed, with the result that the proof of
its orthodoxy was made to lie purely in the authority and sincerity of the
bishops testifying in its favour; yet 119 of them had attended Ephesus II
and acquiesced on that occasion in the suppression of a letter from Leo
summarizing the Tome.

The rest of the session, however, was more lively. The five metropol¬
itan bishops still under suspension since the first session, who had by now
signed Leo’s Tome, were reinstated, and immediately entered and took
their seats, doubtless accompanied by their suffragans; episcopal
consensus, seriously undermined by the suspension of these metropoli¬
tans, was re-established. The irreconcilable minority who were not ready
to take part in the council was now reduced to the Egyptian bishops, who
at this point put in a final appearance. The other bishops demanded their
submission, and they responded, reasonably enough that, if they
accepted the Tome of Leo (and by implication Dioscorus’ deposition),
it would not be safe for them to return to Egypt; the lay chairman
sensibly ruled that they should not be forced to agree to anything until
a new bishop of Alexandria had been appointed. Their appearance at

32 The account, however, in the Coptic Synaxarion of how the empress Pulcheria pulled
at his beard and struck out his teeth when he refused to sign the Chalcedonian Defi¬
nition, and thereby intimidated the other bishops into signing, errs on the side of
fiction.

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON: A NARRATIVE 79

this session was followed by that of a group of pro-Eutychean Constan-
tinopolitan archimandrites, who had been sent to the council by the
emperor to present a petition; the petition was a demand (which one
might judge either heroic or simply impudent) that Dioscorus be
restored to the episcopate and the council. Why had the emperor
assisted this group to present its demands? One may presume that his
motive was to dent the bishops’ new-found sense of unanimity and to
impress on them that, even after the approval of Leo’s Tome, more was
needed to restore concord and order to the churches.

The Chalcedonian Definition

After a pair of unnumbered sessions held on 20 October to deal with
some specific problems relating to persons there followed on 22 October
the fifth and most momentous session of the council. It began with the
presentation by Archbishop Anatolius’ committee of a draft definition
of the faith. The ground had been prepared, since the text had been
shown to the bishops at an informal meeting on the day before, and (to
quote from acclamations) ‘The definition satisfied everyone... The defi¬
nition has satisfied God’ (Acts V. 8). But objections were raised
immediately by some of the Syrian bishops and, more seriously, the
papal representatives. It is not credible that Anatolius would have been
so foolish as to present the draft without having secured Roman
approval beforehand; we can but conclude that since the meeting of the
day before they had been lobbied, presumably by the Syrians, and most
probably by Bishop Theodoret of Cyrrhus, easily the leading represen¬
tative of what we call the ‘Antiochene School’, meaning the Syrian
clergy hostile to Cyril. Since Theodoret was a personal friend of the lay
chairman, the patrician Anatolius,^^ the role the latter was to play in this
session may also be attributed with plausibility to Theodoret’s
lobbying.^'* The minutes do not particularize the objections raised by the
Romans, nor do they preserve the text of the draft definition. But it

33 For his period in Syria and Theodoret’s letters to him see Martindale (1980), 84-6.
Ste. Croix (2006), 291 describes him as ‘the closest and most regular of Theodoret’s
secular correspondents’.

34 A non-Chalcedon source tells us that Theodoret was also in league with Aetius the
archdeacon of Constantinople, who supplied him with a copy of the draft definition
‘by night’, clearly before the other bishops had seen it (Ps.-Zachariah, Hist. Eccl. III.
1, trans. Hamilton and Brooks, 46-7).

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

emerges from what is recorded of the subsequent debate that the
formula expressive of the presence in Christ of both Godhead and
manhood was ‘from two natures’, an expression dear to Cyril, since it
implied that Christ was compounded from two natures, with a stress on
the unity that resulted. Fatally, however, Dioscorus had said at the first
session, T accept from two natures, but I do not accept two’ (Acts I. 332).
The chairman insisted that this made ‘from two natures’ incompatible
with Pope Leo’s insistence on two natures in Christ. This was a distor¬
tion of the truth in several ways. First, as Archbishop Anatolius
immediately pointed out, it was far from evident that Dioscorus had
been condemned for heresy. Secondly the expression ‘two natures’ is not
to be found in Leo’s Tome; Leo was too good a theologian to attach
prime importance to formulae. Thirdly, the most probable hypothesis is
that the draft definition was very close to the confession of faith that
Flavian of Constantinople had read out at the Home Synod of 448, which
contained the phrase ‘from two natures after the incarnation’ (I. 271);^®
this was quite distinct from the position expressed by Eutyches at the
same Home Synod, ‘I acknowledge that our Lord came into being from
two natures before the union, but after the union I acknowledge one
nature’ (I. 527). The bishops clearly realized that the chairman and the
papal representatives were simply trying to pull the wool over their eyes,
and refused to agree to a revision of the draft.^®

At this the chairman suspended the session to give time for the
emperor to be consulted. Marcian replied ‘after a short time’ (V. 21) to
the effect that either the bishops should agree to amend the draft or he
would consider referring the matter to a council to be held in the west,
that is, at Rome and under papal chairmanship. It was one thing to resist
the will of a chairman who was simply a senior court official; it was
another to defy that of the emperor. Yet, amazingly, this is what the
bishops continued for a time to do, until the chairman insisted on the
setting up, and immediate activation, of a new committee to revise the
draft. After deliberations whose length is not specified in the acts but
cannot have been protracted, the archdeacon of Constantinople read

35 The presentation by Anatolius of Constantinople of a definition based on his pre¬
decessor’s confession of faith may be seen as part of his campaign to boost the status
of his see.

36 The account in the acts, taken at face value, can leave a very different impression, for
which see p. 97 below. The later miaphysite champion Severus of Antioch (d. 538)
argued, from selective citation of the minutes, that the bishops demonstrated their
Nestorian sympathies by decrying ‘from two natures’ (Allen and Hayward 2004, 60).

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON: A NARRATIVE 81

out the amended definition, which was accepted by the bishops by accla¬
mation; the fact that the new version was presented by twenty-three
council fathers, of whom the majority had solidly Cyrillian credentials
and none were dissentient Syrians, broke up the united front on which
opposition to the chairman had depended.^^

Was the Definition in its final form faithful to Cyril, or accommo¬
dating to Theodoret, or significantly Roman, or a mixture of all three?
Opinions have varied ever since. The historian will do best simply to
answer the question: how was the Definition understood by the Cyril¬
lian majority on the committee that finalized its wording and by the
Cyrillian majority on the floor that accepted it by acclamation? It would
be absurd to suggest that either of these groups thought of themselves
as correcting Cyril; they must have given a Cyrillian interpretation to
what they approved, even if the Definition had to contain phrases that
would satisfy the Roman delegates. The final section of the Definition
states that ‘one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten’ - in
other words, the divine Son, God the Word, as defined in the Nicene
Creed - is ‘acknowledged in two natures’, while, however, ‘the distinc¬
tive character of each nature is preserved and comes together into one
person and one hypostasis’ (Acts V. 34). ‘Acknowledged in two natures’
has been identified as a formula produced by the moderate Cyrillian
Basil of Seleucia on the basis of the description of Christ in a letter of
Cyril’s as ‘the same perfect in Godhead and the same perfect in
manhood’.^® ‘/n two natures’ as a replacement of the original ‘from two
natures’ was manifestly a surrender to the chairman’s demands, but the
force of the latter formula was implied by the statement that the two
natures ‘come together into one person and one hypostasis’. In all, the
Definition attempted to take the sting out of its assertion of two natures
in Christ, as required by the lay chairman and the Roman delegates, by
expressing it in language derived from Cyril and placing it in the context
of a strong assertion of Christ’s oneness. Unfortunately, any assertion of
‘two natures’ after the union was anathema to the Cyrillian purists, and
the Definition never had a hope of winning universal acceptance in the
eastern provinces.

37 For an analysis of the strongly Cyrillian make up of the committee see Price and
Gaddis, II, 188-9. This is surely important evidence for what theological loyalties the
Definition in its final form is likely to have expressed, but it has been overlooked in
the long debate over the meaning of the Definition.

38 See de Halleux (1976), the most important discussion to date of the sources of the
Definition.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Three days later (25 October) there followed the sixth session,
attended by the emperor Marcian and his consort Pulcheria in person.
Marcian made a self-congratulatory speech, in which he compared
himself to his great predecessor Constantine, in securing the unity of the
Church through unity of doctrine. His speech was followed by the
inevitable acclamations and by a reading of the new definition. There
follow in the acts the bishops’ signatures, whose collection, however, had
begun before the session and was to continue after it;^® they come in this
position in the acts as the result of an editorial decision to link them as
closely as possible to the text of the Definition. In fact the reading of the
text was followed immediately by further acclamations in praise of
Marcian the new Constantine and Pulcheria the new Helena. Marcian
betrayed awareness that the Definition was already proving divisive by
proceeding to pronounce penalties on anyone who stirred up opposition
to it in Constantinople. This he followed by a reading of the text of three
miscellaneous church canons, which, he declared, should be approved
by the bishops ‘in council rather than enacted by our laws’ (Acts VI. 16),
and finally by the elevation of the city of Chalcedon to honorary metro¬
politan status.'*®

The Later Sessions

By now the council had held sessions spread out over eighteen days; it
was to sit for a further week, meeting almost every day, to conduct the
remainder of the business that fell to it, that was distinctly miscellaneous.
The agenda either arose naturally from the earlier sessions or were set
by the emperor. It was therefore unfair, as well as discourteous, when
during the proceedings on 30 October the chairman complained, ‘The
attention to public business necessary for the state is being neglected as

39 Through the metropolitans adding the names of bishops who were not even present
at the council the total number of signatories amounted to 452. Honigmann (1942-3)
showed that, if we add double counting of bishops represented and their representa¬
tives, we reach the figure of 630 council fathers that appears in later sources.

40 This was immediately written into the opening of the Definition, which should be
translated ‘The holy, great and ecumenical council, assembled... in the metropolis of
Chalcedon in the province of Bithynia’, not (as so often) ‘in Chalcedon the metrop¬
olis of the province of Bithynia’, which is precisely the dignity that was not accorded
to the city: Nicomedia remained the provincial capital.

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON: A NARRATIVE 83

a result of our having been ordered by the divine head to attend the
council continually in this way for the sake of the faith’ (Acts XII. 2).'*^
It was true that much of the business could have despatched by a much
smaller body, but it was by the emperor’s choice that it received the
attention of the whole council. The business consisted in the main of
settling disputes over individuals (Theodore! of Cyrrhus, Ibas of Edessa,
Domnus formerly bishop of Antioch) and between rival bishops or rival
sees (the two claimants to the see of Ephesus, the two claimants to the
see of Perrhe in Syria Euphratensis, the rival metropoleis of Nicomedia
and Nicaea, the rival patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem).'*^

Most of the decisions taken were predictable. After the discrediting
of the proceedings of Ephesus II it was inevitable that two of its victims,
Theodore! and Ibas, would be reinstated. Domnus would also have been
reinstated, but Pope Leo had already recognized his successor Maximus,
and Domnus himself was happy to retire on a generous pension.'*^
Undoing the work of Ephesus II also decided the dispute over the see
of Perrhe. If this had been the only factor at play, it would also have
settled the dispute between Antioch and Jerusalem (over patriarchal
rights) to the advantage of the former, but Bishop Maximus of Antioch
was in a weak position (Domnus’ rights to his see had still to be
discussed) and the two sees worked out a compromise that the council
was happy to approve; in the words of a modern historian the two agreed
that ‘a bad peace was better than a good quarrel’.

This meant that out of all this business the only genuinely contentious
item was the dispute over the see of Ephesus, where neither of the rival
bishops were edifying candidates for the post and the council fathers
were divided.'*^ Not surprisingly, in view of the dominant role that was
played throughout the council by the imperial representatives, it was the
chairman who pressed and secured agreement to a decision that both
candidates should be excluded and a new bishop appointed. In the
course of the debate there emerged, as a more important issue than the
rival claims of the two bishops, the question whether the bishop of
Ephesus should be consecrated at Ephesus itself by the bishops of

41 The implication that church affairs, in the view of a highly placed layman of indu¬
bitable piety, formed a minor category of government business is worth pondering.

42 See the table of the various sessions in Price and Gaddis, I, xiv (and II and III, viii).

43 See the unnumbered session on Domnus, II, 310-12.

44 Bolotov (1917), 302. The matter was despatched in Session VII of the council.

45 See Price and Gaddis, III, 1-3.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Asiana or at Constantinople by the archbishop of the imperial city;'*'’
there had been similar contention over the consecration of the metro¬
politan bishops of the Pontic and Thracian dioceses. The matter was not
settled until the final session of the council, on 1 November, when Arch¬
bishop Anatolius of Constantinople presented a canon (later known as
Canon 28) which laid down that the metropolitans of Thrace, Asiana and
Pontica should all be consecrated at Constantinople; it justified the grant
of these new privileges on the ground that the see of Constantinople, in
view of its status as the imperial city, should enjoy in the eastern
provinces rights comparable to those of Rome in Italy (Acts XVI. 8).
This final session of the council ended on a sour note when the Roman
legates, who had been singularly slow to wake up to the importance of
the issue, attempted to impose a veto. The precise nature of their objec¬
tion is not clear from the acts, but when Pope Leo subsequently took up
the matter he contested not the privileges of Constantinople in its imme¬
diate hinterland but the bestowal on the city of a status superior to that
of the ancient and apostolic sees of Alexandria and Antioch. These, like
Rome, were Petrine sees (Mark of Alexandria was Peter’s disciple, while
Peter had, supposedly, been the first bishop of Antioch before
proceeding to Rome), and Rome foresaw that a consequence of the
canon would be a weakening of its own influence in Syria and Egypt.
The issue was not, as has often been supposed, the relative status of
Constantinople and Rome, since no one disputed Roman primacy; what
was achieved was the formal erection of the patriarchate of Constan¬
tinople.'*’

The numeration ‘Canon 28’ arose from its later addition to a group of
27 canons that were subsequently issued in the name of the council, and
which included the canons that Marcian had entrusted to the bishops at
the end of the sixth session. These canons appear as the ‘seventh act’ of
the council in the Greek Acts and as the fifteenth in the final Latin
version, but there are no minutes of a conciliar session at which they
were discussed. It is possible that they were simply drawn up by Arch¬
bishop Anatolius of Constantinople after the council and issued in its
name, but in view of the emperor’s directions that they were to be

46 Acts XL 52-62. The Asian bishops exclaimed, Tf someone is consecrated here [at
Constantinople], our children will perish and the city will be ruined’ (53), referring to
the extortionate consecration fees charged by the archbishop of Constantinople.

47 See the discussion in Price and Gaddis, III, 70-2, and the articles by A. de Halleux
referred to there.

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON: A NARRATIVE 85

‘decreed in council’ it is more probable that they were approved at yet
another semi-formal session chaired by the archbishop. These canons
were principally concerned to secure episcopal control over priests and
monks; they are sloppily drafted, and show scant concern for natural
justice, but they certainly strengthened the hand of Anatolius, his
colleagues and their successors against independent-minded spirits on
the lower levels of the church hierarchy.'** Two canons (9 and 17) are
notable for establishing a wide appellate jurisdiction for Constantinople:
one is again impressed by the skill of Anatolius is using the council to
promote the interests of his own see.

The most important of these later sessions for subsequent church
history were the eighth and tenth at which (respectively) Bishop
Theodore! of Cyrrhus and Bishop Ibas of Edessa were restored to their
sees. Anti-Chalcedonians were to claim repeatedly that these decisions
betrayed Nestorian leanings that discredited the council.'*® It is true that
Theodore! and Ibas were only restored after they had anathematized
Nestorius in the presence of the council fathers, but Theodore! did so
with obvious reluctance, and neither bishop was required to withdraw
the writings in which a decade or two ago he had fiercely criticized Cyril
of Alexandria. This omission was understandable in the context of 451,
since they had specifically attacked the Twelve Chapters contained in
Cyril’s Third Letter to Nestorius, whose authority was not recognized at
Chalcedon. By the middle of the sixth century, however, when this Third
Letter was presumed to be one of the ‘conciliar’ letters connected to
Ephesus I and acclaimed by Chalcedon, it had come to appear that the
council had treated Theodore! and Ibas too leniently.

Particularly intriguing, and vastly debated during the Three Chapters
controversy of the time of Justinian,^** was the Letter of Ibas to Mari the
Persian. This letter, written in 433, criticized Cyril and the pro-Cyrillian
sessions of Ephesus I with wit and acerbity. It was read out at Chalcedon
accidentally, because of its presence in the minutes of a hearing at
Berytus in 449 that Ibas’ accusers forced on the attention of the council

48 For an annotated text of the canons see Price and Gaddis, III, 92-103. For Marcian’s
directions see Acts VI. 16. Canon 18, forbidding clergy from ‘plotting against bishops’,
has been used in Moscow in post-Soviet times to suppress priests who had the
temerity to resist patriarchal injustice.

49 See the minutes of the dialogue between Chalcedonian and anti-Chalcedonian
bishops at Constantinople in 532, in Brock (1981).

50 For an analysis of the sixth-century debate see Price (2009), I, 88-98.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

fathers. The bishops were not sitting in judgement specifically on the
letter, but in the verdicts in which they proceeded to restore Ibas to his
see two of them referred to it: the Roman legate Paschasinus declared
that ‘the most devout Ibas has been proved innocent and from the
reading of his letter we have found him to be orthodox’ (Acts X. 161),
and Maximus of Antioch stated that ‘from the reading of the transcript
of the letter produced by his adversary his writing has been seen to be
orthodox’ (X. 163). In view of the letter’s disrespectful treatment of Cyril
and Ephesus I, and curiously muted criticisms of Nestorius, these
compliments seem oddly injudicious. One wonders whether Paschasinus
had really taken in the full contents of the letter; he was not a native
Greek-speaker, and one may suspect that by the end of the reading of
the Acts of Berytus he was not listening very carefully; and as a west¬
erner he may in any case have been less than sensitive to the way in which
the letter was acutely embarrassing to the eastern bishops, who recog¬
nized that Ibas had to be restored to his see but were hugely respectful
of Cyril and Ephesus I. But once Paschasinus as the senior bishop
present had uttered his verdict, it was contrary to conciliar etiquette for
anyone to question it. Maximus of Antioch, like the other bishops, could
simply have ignored the letter when it came to his turn to speak, but his
tenure of the see of Antioch (to which Domnus’ superior rights had not
yet been discounted) depended on Roman support, and he chose to echo
Paschasinus. Even Juvenal of Jerusalem, a fierce enemy of all suspected
Nestorians and the speaker immediately after Maximus, could go no
further than to say, ‘Divine Scripture orders the receiving back of those
who repent, which is why we also receive people from heresy. I there¬
fore resolve that the most devout Ibas should receive clemency, also
because he is elderly, so as to retain episcopal dignity, being orthodox’
(X. 164).5i

Paschasinus also erred in acquitting Ibas without attaching any condi¬
tions. The main proof of his orthodoxy presented to the council had been
a promise he had made to Photius of Tyre at a hearing back in February
449, recorded in a document that had been read out at the previous
session (Acts IX. 7):

The aforesaid most God-beloved man undertook, even beyond the call of

duty, to address the church in his own city and publicly anathematize Nesto-

51 Michael Whitby comments (p. 190 below), ‘A judgement of orthodoxy could scarcely
be more damning.’

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON: A NARRATIVE 87

rius, the fomenter of wicked impiety, and those who shared his beliefs and
cited his words or writings; he also undertook to profess belief in what is
contained in the letter of accord between the most God-beloved and sacred
in memory bishops John of the very great city of Antioch and Cyril of the
very great city of Alexandria (a letter whose agent was Paul of blessed
memory, bishop of the city of Emesa, and which established universal
harmony), to assent to all the recent transactions of the holy synod that met
in imperial and Christ-loving Constantinople, and to embrace everything
that was decreed in the metropolis of Ephesus, as stemming from a council
guided by the Holy Spirit, and to consider it equal to the one convoked at
Nicaea, acknowledging no difference between them7^

But no one at Chalcedon thought to ask whether Ibas had in fact kept
his promise; the minutes of the hearing at Edessa shortly afterwards
suggest that hostility towards him was so intense that he had not even
been able to return to the city, except possibly on the most fleeting of
visits7^ Yet after Paschasinus’ unconditional acquittal of Ibas none of
the bishops who spoke individually dared to state unambiguously that
Ibas needed to prove his orthodoxy in the presence of the council. Only
when it came to the subsequent acclamations did the bishops make the
demand, ‘Let him now anathematize Nestorius’ (Acts X. 179). The
council only narrowly escaped the disaster of restoring Ibas without his
repudiating Nestorius.

Conciliar Fundamentalism

The question of the judgement of the fathers of Chalcedon on the Letter
to Mari the Persian was to prove the most contentious issue in the Three
Chapters controversy of the reign of Justinian. The truth was that the
council had seen no call to issue a verdict on the matter; but, as we have
seen, the letter was referred to with approval by two of the most senior
bishops present. Justinian tried to play this down by asserting:

52 Reference is to Cyril’s Laetentur caeli letter in which in 433 he made peace with John
of Antioch and the Syrian bishops, the Home Synod of 448 which condemned Euty-
ches, and the decrees of Ephesus I.

53 These minutes are contained in the Syriac Acts of Ephesus II and translated in Doran
(2006), 139-75.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Often at councils some things are said by some of those found at them out of
partiality or disagreement or ignorance, but no one attends to what is said
individually by a few, but only to what is decreed by all by common consent;
for if one were to choose to attend to such disagreement in the way they do,
each council will be found refuting itself.

For the reasons I have given it was not really possible to dismiss the
verdict of the senior bishop in so cavalier a fashion, but why could
Justinian not simply have said that the bishops were not judging the
letter and that the favourable references to it were no more than obiter
dictal It is revealing that he felt it necessary to argue that contradictory
statements by different bishops could be discounted; the implication is
that authority attached not simply to conciliar decrees but to whatever
had been said at councils. Even odder is another of his arguments:

They [Ibas’ defenders] claim that the impious letter ought not to be subjected
to criticism because it is included in some documents. But if one were to
accept this according to their folly, it would be necessary to accept Nestorius
and Eutyches, since much about them as well is included in conciliar proceed¬
ings. But no one right-minded will attend to these claims of theirs. For
information about heretics that is cited at councils and becomes part of the
minutes is accepted not to absolve them but to convict them and for the
stronger condemnation both of them and of those who hold the same tenets
as they do.^^

The implication is that a document possessed prima facie authority
simply because it was to be found in conciliar acts, and Justinian felt it
necessary to make the crassly obvious point that acts contain heretical
documents purely in order to condemn with greater clarity the heresies
they contain.

This tendency to what we call conciliar fundamentalism had not yet
developed by the time of Chalcedon; if it had, the acts would have been
more reticent in revealing dissent and disagreement. We may also note
the attitude of the fathers of Chalcedon to the First Council of Ephesus
of 431. When they referred to the ‘proceedings’ or ‘decrees’ of Ephesus
I,^® they were thinking of Nestorius’ condemnation, of Cyril’s ‘conciliar’

54 Justinian, De recta fide {On the orthodox faith). Price (2009), 1,150-1.

55 Ibid. p. 150.

56 Note especially the reiterated references to Ephesus I in the judgements passed on
Leo’s Tome at Acts IV. 9.

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON: A NARRATIVE 89

letters associated with the council, and of the canon forbidding the
composition of new creeds.^’ Yet at the same time they felt free to ignore
Cyril’s Twelve Chapters, despite their citation in the first session of the
council.^®

This new conciliar fundamentalism, where all the acts and not just the
decrees were treated with exaggerated respect, not only developed after
Chalcedon, but was closely connected to the dissemination of its acts,
since no such acts survived from the ecumenical councils of Nicaea and
Constantinople I, and only partial acts from Ephesus I. It found eloquent
expression in a letter written by Deacon Ferrandus of Carthage in the
mid-540s in protest at Justinian’s First Edict against the Three Chapters
(which seemed to reverse some of the decisions of Chalcedon):

If there is disapproval of any part of the Council of Chalcedon, the approval
of the whole is in danger of becoming disapproval... But the whole Council
of Chalcedon, since the whole of it is the Council of Chalcedon, is true; no
part of it is open to criticism. Whatever we know to have been uttered, trans¬
acted, decreed and confirmed there was worked by the ineffable and secret
power of the Holy Spirit.^®

Whence came this failure to make appropriate distinction between
the decrees of the councils and their debates? The explanation lies, I
would suggest, in the likening of conciliar acts to the books of Holy Scrip¬
ture. As Ferrandus wrote in the same letter, ‘General councils,
particularly those that have gained the assent of the Roman church, hold
a place of authority second only to the canonical books.’® Of course not
everything in conciliar acts was accorded equal weight, and they mani¬
festly contained utterances by heretics, such as Nestorius and
Eutyches;®^ but after all not everything in Scripture was of equal weight,
and Scripture likewise contained the utterances of the ungodly, such as
Jezebel and Caiaphas. Perhaps a still more apt comparison would be
with the writings of the Church Fathers: not all of the Fathers were
equally venerated, and some of the writings of each one were more

57 The canon on creeds (given at I. 943) was appealed to at the second session (II. 7) and
incorporated at the end of the Definition.

58 ACO 1.1.2, p. 36, with 1.1.1, pp. 33-42. See de Halleux (1992), 445-54.

59 Ferrandus, ep. 6.3 (in Price 2009,1,114-15)..

60 Ibid. 926A.

61 Acts of Chalcedon I. 470-545 (passim) and 944.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

central in the tradition than others, but all of them had to be treated with
respect and had prima facie authority.

The Council of Chalcedon was the first ecumenical council of which
complete and full acts were published, and the emperor Marcian in
authorizing their publication must have calculated that their honest
disclosure of tensions and disagreements would prove the thoroughness
and the freedom of the council’s work. For a modern reader they show
the human side of what was brought about ‘by the ineffable and secret
power of the Holy Spirit’. But by the sixth century the Acts of Chalcedon
had come to be read by Chalcedonians as an authoritative text, and the
story of the Council of Chalcedon, as revealed in the acts, was viewed as
akin to sacred history.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acta Conciliorum Oecumeniconim, ed. Eduard Schwartz and others (Berlin,
1914-).

Allen, Pauline and C.T.R. Hayward (2004), Severus of Antioch (London).

Bolotov, V.V. (1917), Lektsiipo istorii drevnei tserkvi, Vol. 4 (St Petersburg).

Brock, Sebastian (1981), ‘The Conversations with the Syrian Orthodox under
Justinian (532)’, Orientalia Christiana Peridoica 47: 87-121 = id., Studies in
Syriac Christianity (Variorum, 1992), XIII.

Chadwick, Henry (2001), The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to
Gregory the Great (Oxford).

De Halleux, Andre (1976), ‘La definition christologique a Chalcedoine’, RThL
1: 3-23,155-70 = id., Patrologie et oecumenisme (Leuven, 1990), 445-80.

-(1992), ‘Les douze chapitres cyrilliens au concile d’Ephese (430^33)’,

RThL 23: 425-58.

Doran, Robert (2006), Stewards of the Poor: The Man of God, Rabbula, and
Hiba in Fifth-Century Edessa (Kalamazoo).

Dragnet, R. (1931), ‘La christologie d’Eutyches d’apres les Actes du synode de
Llavien’, Byz 6: 441-57.

Honigmann, Ernest (1942-3), ‘The Original Lists of the Members of the
Council of Nicaea, the Robber Synod and the Council of Chalcedon’, Byz
16: 20-80.

Kelly, J.N.D. (1972), Early Christian Creeds, 3rd edition (London).

MacMullen, Ramsay (2006), Voting for God in Early Church Councils (New
Haven & London).

Martindale, J. R. (1980), The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol.
2: A.D. 395-527 (Cambridge).

Pelagius [Pope Pelagius I], In defensione trium capitulorum, ed. Robert

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON: A NARRATIVE 91

Devreesse, Studi e Testi 57 (Vatican City, 1932), and PL, Suppl. 4,1313-69
(Paris, 1967).

Price, Richard and Gaddis, Michael (2005), The Acts of the Council of Chal-
cedon, 3 vols, TTH 45 (Liverpool).

Price, R.M. (2007), ‘Theotokos: The Title and its Significance in Doctrine and
Devotion’, in S.J. Boss, ed., Mary: The Complete Resource (London), 56-73.

-(2009). Acts of the Council of Constantinople of553, trans. with introduc¬
tion and notes, 2 vols, TTH 51 (Liverpool).

Ps.-Zachariah of Mitylene, Historia Ecclesiastica. Trans. F.J. Hamilton and
E.W. Brooks, The Syriac Chronicle known as that of Zachariah of Mitylene
(London, 1899; New York, 1979).

Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de (2006), ‘The Council of Chalcedon’ (with additions by
Michael Whitby), in Christian Persecution, Martyrdom, and Orthodoxy
(Oxford), 259-319.

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88: 245-53.

TRUTH, OMISSION, AND FICTION
IN THE ACTS OF CHALCEDON

Richard Price

Truth

Who in the early church published conciliar acts and why? Without
attempting a generalization, I shall simply say that the Acts of Chal-
cedon were manifestly produced and published by the imperial
government, shortly after the council.^ What was the purpose of
publishing the minutes, and not just the decrees? The minutes inevitably
showed up disagreements: how was this of any advantage to the winning
side?

It is to be noted that conciliar decisions had to be unanimous. All the
bishops at Chalcedon, save the Egyptians (allowed to drop out after
their patriarch’s deposition), had to sign the Definition of Faith. Anti-
Chalcedonian sources inform us of bishops who only signed the
Definition under compulsion or whose signatures had to be provided by
colleagues.^ Regularly throughout the council when a formal decision
had to be reached, a period of open discussion (where the minutes are
more likely to be selective than complete) would be closed by the senior
bishop present delivering his judgement; this would be followed by
similar pronouncements by other bishops, delivered in rough order of
seniority. The total number of individual verdicts varied - 192 (almost
all the bishops present) in the condemnation of Dioscorus in Session III,
161 in the approval of Leo’s Tome in Session IV, a mere 18 in the rein¬
statement of Bishop Ibas of Edessa in Session 'X? The remaining bishops
would then express their view by acclamation, after an invitation (not
always recorded) by the chairman. There was no scope for contrary
voices: this imposed a duty on the senior bishop to express the common
consensus, but once he had spoken the other bishops had no option but

1 A date of 455 for the publication of the Acts of Chalcedon can be deduced from dates
of the documents in the attached documentary collections (Price and Gaddis, III,
180).

2 See Price and Gaddis, II, 207 and 234 (n. 47).

3 Acts of Chalcedon III. 94-6; IV. 9; X. 161-78.

TRUTH, OMISSION AND FICTION IN THE ACTS 93

to confirm his decision."^ Indeed, the verdict of the senior bishop took
immediate effect, even before the other bishops had spoken. This is clear
from the trial of Dioscorus at the third session, where the first bishop to
pronounce a verdict was the papal legate Paschasinus, who declared
Dioscorus deposed: once he had done so, all the bishops who subse¬
quently delivered verdicts referred to Dioscorus as ‘formerly’ bishop of
Alexandria (Acts III. 94-6). This is in stark contrast to the proceedings
of the Roman Senate, where senators also spoke in order of seniority
but enjoyed a freedom, absent from ecumenical councils, to express
contrary opinions or to make counter-proposals when their turn to speak
came round.

This unanimity, credible in the case of judicial verdicts on individuals,
was, of course, artificial in the case of debates over doctrine, for if a
particular doctrine was really held unanimously there would have been
no need for a conciliar debate at all. When the emperor Constantine
arrived in the eastern provinces in 324 as victor over Licinius, he was
shocked to discover bitter contention over the niceties of how to
describe the relation between the First and Second Persons of the
Trinity, and wrote to a council of bishops at Antioch,

You surely know how even the philosophers themselves all agree in one set
of principles, and often when they disagree in some part of their statements,
although they are separated by their learned skill, yet they agree together
again in unity when it comes to basic principle... Let us reconsider what was
said with more thought and greater understanding, to see whether it is right
that, through a few futile verbal quarrels between you, brothers are set
against brothers and the honourable synod divided in ungodly variance
through us, when we quarrel with each other over such small and utterly
unimportant matters.^

Constantine’s perception that the essence of Christianity lies in the
united worship of God rather than in a futile demand for intellectual
precision was not shared by the dominant figures in the late antique epis¬
copate in the eastern provinces. For them it was the truth that was at
issue, and there could only be one truth. Whoever did not share the
convictions of the majority was an enemy of the truth, a heretic; there

4 See my discussion of the verdicts on Ibas of Edessa, pp. 85-6 above.

5 Eusebius, Life of Constantine 2.70.2-3, trans. Cameron and Hall, 118. See note on p.
250.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

was therefore no scope at councils for the toleration of dissident minori¬
ties. In retrospect, moreover, each council was perceived to have been
guided by the Holy Spirit, and a fruit and sign of the presence of the Holy
Spirit was ‘one heart and soul’ (Acts of the Apostles 4:32). As Deacon
Ferrandus of Carthage was to write of the Council of Chalcedon in the
mid-540s:

Whatever we know to have been uttered, transacted, decreed and confirmed
there was worked by the ineffable and secret power of the Holy Spirit... No
one there condemned anyone against the will of others, no one acquitted
anyone against the will of others; all agreed with one another and readily
fulfilled the words of the teacher of the Gentiles, heeding his words, ‘I
beseech you, brethren, that you all say the same and that there be not divi¬
sions among you.’®

The presumption of unanimity imposed on the editors of the minutes
a particular responsibility. The problems of writing up the minutes of
councils are delightfully illustrated in the minutes, read out at the first
session of Chalcedon, of a hearing held in April 449 to examine the Acts
of the Home Synod of November 448 at which Eutyches had been
condemned for refusing to recognize two natures in Christ.^ Revealing is
the evidence that at the synod Bishop Basil of Seleucia had tried to help
Eutyches by suggesting a sound miaphysite (one-nature) formula and
that this had led to an angry exchange with Eutyches’ accuser, Eusebius
of Dorylaeum, an uncompromising dyophysite.® None of this appears in
the minutes, which represent the synod fathers as united in their support
of Eusebius and their hounding of Eutyches. One of the notaries
commented that some of the bishops’ interventions were not intended for
recording (Acts I. 792); at no less than three points in the examination of
the minutes the patrician Florentius reacted to the inclusion of ill-judged
interventions he had made by saying that they should not have been
minuted (I. 772-8). Then as now minute-takers had the unenviable task
of distinguishing between remarks whose omission would offend and
remarks whose inclusion would be equally unwelcome.

Yet the acts are surprisingly honest about the degree of dissent, partic¬
ularly the disagreement between the lay chairman and the bishops as a

6 Ferrandus, ep. 6. 3,5 (in Price 2009,1,114-16), citing 1 Cor 1:10.

7 Acts I. 555-828.

8 See Acts I. 754, 791, 798.

TRUTH, OMISSION AND FICTION IN THE ACTS 95

whole that arose at a number of points in the council. At the beginning
of the second session the chairman said to the bishops, ‘Apply yourselves
without fear, favour or enmity to produce a pure exposition of the faith’
(II. 2). The bishops, however, had no wish to produce a new definition
of the faith and responded, ‘What has already been expounded is suffi¬
cient. It is not permissible to produce another exposition’ (II. 5). This
was a straight rejection of the chairman’s proposal. The chairman got
round it by ignoring it: he closed the session with the words, ‘The
proposals will be put into effect’ (II. 45).

Particularly striking is the dramatic confrontation between the lay
chairman and the bishops that took place at the fifth session, which
began with the presentation of a draft definition of the faith, produced
by a committee chaired by Archbishop Anatolius of Constantinople.
The Roman delegates and a few of the Syrian bishops objected to the
draft, at which the lay chairman said it would have to be amended. The
bishops responded, ‘Let the definition be signed now. Whoever will not
sign is a heretic’ (V. 12). The chairman proceeded to argue that the Defi¬
nition had to be amended so as to make clear a real and continuing
duality in Christ even after the union, in accord with the teaching of Pope
Leo; the bishops responded, ‘The definition contains everything...
Exclude all chicanery from the letter’ (V. 20). The matter was referred
to the emperor, who told the bishops they had to give way. Amazingly,
they still put up resistance, exclaiming, ‘Let the definition be confirmed
or we shall leave’ (V. 23), and again, ‘The dissenters are Nestorians. Let
the dissenters go off to Rome’ (V. 25). It needed further persuasion, or
rather dictation, from the chairman before they agreed to amendment
of the draft.

All this was highly useful information for subsequent critics of the
council, who could claim that the bishops had produced the Definition
only under coercion, and what was worse, under coercion by lay officials
with Nestorian sympathies. As a non-Chalcedonian of the mid-sixth
century, John Philoponus, was to write: ‘He (Marcian) made the bishops
sit as judges in appearance, but he joined to them as the true judges the
notables and senators, among whom were to be found supporters of
paganism, of Manichaeism and of other heresies, and the majority were
friends of Nestorius.’®

9 Philoponus, Four Tmemata against Chalcedon, as abridged in Michael the Syrian,
Chronicle, trans. Chabot, II, 99. Several of the officials who presided over the council
had corresponded with Theodoret, and the chairman Anatolius was Theodoret’s
friend. See Price and Gaddis, 1,122-3, notes.

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

So how are we to account for the truthfulness of the acts about dissen¬
sion at the council? In the first session the minutes of the first session of
the so-called ‘Robber Council’ of Ephesus of 449 were read out; of the
bishops who had attended that council and supported Dioscorus 119
were present at Chalcedon (out of a total attendance at Chalcedon of
around 370). They attempted to excuse their behaviour at Ephesus by
claiming that they had acted under duress and that the minutes of
Ephesus gave a false impression of unanimity. “ The emperor Marcian
was therefore concerned that at Chalcedon there should be free debate
and faithful minutes that recorded disagreement^^ - within, however,
certain limits, that must now be discussed.

Omission

At the fifth session (as I have already said) the draft definition was read
out, discussed, and eventually amended; it was the most significant and
the most dramatic of all the sessions of the council. There are striking
omissions in the minutes: they leave out the draft definition, as also the
objections raised to it by the Roman delegates and by some of the Syrian
bishops. The sheer brevity of the record is proof of extensive omissions.
At the end of the session, after the reading out of the revised definition,
the bishops are recorded as approving it by universal acclamation: ‘This
is the faith of the fathers. Let the metropolitans sign at once... To this
we all assent. We all believe accordingly’ (Acts V. 35). Whence suddenly
this happy consensus? Did the mere reading of the Definition in its final
form silence all dissent and leave scope for nothing but applause? Even
if, as we have seen, the main sequence of the session was recorded with
surprising honesty, it is clear that the editors of the acts used plenty of
red pencil: although the existence of disagreement over the drafting of
the Definition was to be admitted as evidence of honest debate, the
details of the discussion were to be excised, since they would have
revealed real theological disagreement, and that would have been scan¬
dalous. The work of the council had been to suppress innovation in

10 E.g., Acts 1.134 and 121-2.

11 Note the alternative explanation advanced by Michael Whitby (p. 183 below): the
honesty of the acts as to the degree of episcopal dissension was intended to bring out
the need for firm imperial direction of church affairs. It is certainly true that the acts,
and the documentary collections that accompanied them (for which see Price and
Gaddis, III, 157-92), stress rather than minimize imperial involvement.

TRUTH, OMISSION AND FICTION IN THE ACTS 97

doctrine and respond to the guidance of the Holy Spirit;^^ there may have
been disagreement on how exactly to word the common belief shared by
all, but nothing was to be left in the minutes that would undermine the
impression of unity in belief and witness, and a genuine unanimity in
approving the Definition in its final form.

The result has sometimes deceived historians as to what was really
going on. It emerges from the acts that the draft definition stated that
Christ is ‘from two natures’. The Roman delegates and the chairman
wanted this formula to be replaced by a wholly unambiguous statement
of a continued distinction between the two natures even after the union;
the majority of bishops present resisted this, since it smacked to them of
Nestorianism. In the minutes as they stand, however, ‘from two natures’
features as the favoured expression of the recently condemned
Dioscorus, while the stronger expression that the chairman demanded
is presented as the teaching of Pope Leo that all the bishops had
approved without reservation at the fourth session (Acts V. 13-17). The
bishops, according to this account, had no solid reason to raise difficul¬
ties, and the chairman’s task was not to compel them to accept
something against their will, but simply to explain to them, as to slow-
witted schoolchildren, the clear logic of the question before them; and
this he did, one modern historian has naively remarked, ‘with exemplary
patience’.

One may likewise suspect omission in the closing paragraphs of the
acts of the eighth session. The minutes give a frank account of the testy
discussion that preceded the bishops’ approval of the reinstatement of
Theodoret to his see of Cyrrhus, after he had reluctantly anathematized
Nestorius, and then record the uttering of similar anathemas by three
further bishops suspected of heresy (Sophronius of Constantia, John of
Germanicia, and Amphilochius of Side) in response to demands from
‘the most devout bishops’ (Acts VIII. 26-31).^^^ But there must have been
discussion of each of these bishops in turn, and the lay chairman must
have played a part. Yet none of this appears in the acts; what we have is
manifestly the barest summary.

The most obvious cases of omission in the acts are, of course, the

12 See Marcian’s edicts confirming the decrees of the council, Price and Gaddis, III, 128-
36.

13 Kidd (1922), III, 325.

14 The preceding sections (VIII. 4—25) treat the case of Theodoret at length; the only
unclarity is the comparative sizes of the episcopal party that declared him a ‘heretic’
(12) and of the party that hailed him as an ‘orthodox teacher’ (15).

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

sessions of which there are simply no minutes, notably those held
separately under the chairmanship of Archbishop Anatolius of Constan¬
tinople. The public sessions were held in the church of St Euphemia, and
were chaired by a bench of high state officials (in practice by their leader,
the patrician Anatolius), except for the third session, when the senior
Roman legate presided. But in addition to these we hear of meetings of
large numbers of bishops under the chairmanship of Archbishop
Anatolius of Constantinople, some in the same church and some in his
palace on the other side of the Bosporus.The acts contain references
to four of these: first, to a meeting aimed at ironing out disagreement
over Leo’s Tome before the matter was brought to a public session of
the council (Acts II. 31).^® When it was brought to the formal fourth
session two groups of bishops testified to assurances on the meaning of
the Tome that had been given at this earlier session by the Roman dele¬
gates, who clearly went out of their way to assure the doubters that the
Tome’s insistence on the distinction between the natures was in no way
intended to teach their separation.^’ But otherwise the minutes of the
fourth session consist of nothing more than the bishops declaring briefly
and repetitively that the Tome was orthodox. Since many of the same
bishops had acquiesced in the suppression at Ephesus II of a letter from
Leo summarizing the Tome, just two years previously, their testimony
at Chalcedon was all too obviously mere conformism. Minutes of the
earlier meeting, where in contrast there was serious and frank discus¬
sion, would have provided more convincing testimony to the Tome’s
orthodoxy; the lack of such minutes in the acts weakened their effec¬
tiveness as propaganda.

Secondly, there are references at the fifth session to a meeting of the
bishops on the previous day where the draft definition ‘satisfied
everyone’ (Acts V. 7, 8, 12). Thirdly, we read in the minutes of the
sixteenth session of a previous meeting of the bishops, again under the
chairmanship of Archbishop Anatolius, where Canon 28 on the status
and privileges of the see of Constantinople was approved and signed by

15 The initial meeting that approved Canon 28 was held in St Euphemia’s after the offi¬
cials had departed (Acts XVI. 4), while another of these meetings was held ‘in the
residence of the most holy Archbishop Anatolius’ (II. 31).

16 This meeting was intended primarily for those in doubt over the Tome and some care¬
fully selected bishops able to reassure them (Acts II. 33), but other bishops are likely
to have attended out of interest.

17 Acts IV.9, after §§98 and 114.

TRUTH, OMISSION AND FICTION IN THE ACTS 99

182 bishops (XVI. 4-9)2® Fourthly, there may also have been a session
to approve the other 27 canons; there is no reference to such a session,
but the emperor had asked for one when he himself attended the session
at which the Definition was formally proclaimed (VI. 16).^^ We can also
detect some omissions in the extant acts resulting from revision of the
text subsequent to its initial publication under Marcian. The minutes of
the tenth session contain, within the minutes of a previous hearing at
Berytus that were read out at this session, the notorious Letter of Bishop
Ibas of Edessa to Mari the Persian, presented very barely without any
introduction or comment (X. 137-8). Yet the inclusion in the acts just
before the reading of the letter of a formula of verification (T have read,
we have read, he had read’) that regularly follows statements by the
chairman at Chalcedon proves that a statement by him at this point was
originally given in the minutes. The Berytus minutes must likewise have
contained a statement by the chairman at Berytus authorizing the
reading, and there would surely have followed discussion of the letter,
both at Berytus and at Chalcedon. Why and when was all this
suppressed? The natural presumption is that this was done during the
Three Chapters controversy in the time of Justinian: Justinian claimed
that the bishops of Chalcedon regarded the letter as a forgery, and the
suppressed part of the minutes may well have contained evidence that
disproved this claim. Should the suppression be attributed to Justinian
himself? However, he himself asserted that there was no trace of this
particular session among the original conciliar documents;^” can we
really believe him to have been so duplicitous as to make this claim while
knowing that he himself had secreted the original minutes? Moreover,
if they had survived till Justinian’s time, they would surely have been
unearthed by those defenders of Ibas’ letter, notably Rusticus and
Facundus, who searched the archives of Constantinople.^^ It remains

18 Attendance was in no way restricted to the bishops (of the Thracian, Asian and Pontic
dioceses) who were directly affected: the signatories include many bishops from Syria
and Palestine.

19 Price and Gaddis, III, 92-3 suggest that no such session took place, and that the
canons were simply issued by Anatolius in the council’s name; but I think now that I
failed to give sufficient weight to Marcian’s instructions and that there must have been
some meeting of bishops to rubber-stamp the canons.

20 Justinian, Letter on the Three Chapters (Schwartz 1939, p. 66, 15-18) and On the
orthodox faith (ibid., p. 100, 4-6).

21 Note that the Codex Acumitanus, an early manuscript used by Rusticus, contained
the minutes of the tenth session (Schwartz 1923, 16-17). Eduard Schwartz first
suspected that Justinian had suppressed the record, but later changed his mind; I now
withdraw my earlier preference (Price and Gaddis, II, 271-2) for his original opinion.

100

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

plausible to suppose that the tampering with the record was due to
embarrassment over the Letter to Ibas, but at an earlier date than the
reign of Justinian.

Fiction and Falsification

The acts have reached us in two editions: the original edition produced
in the 450s is lost, but we have a fairly complete Latin edition dating from
the 550s, and a less complete Greek edition dating perhaps to the early
seventh century.^^ There is some variation in contents. It would appear
that the unnumbered acts (whether surviving in Greek or Latin) were
not part of the original edition.^^ Both of the two surviving editions,
though particularly the Greek edition, go in for a certain amount of
sensible abbreviation - of minor sessions,^'* of documents read out,^^ of
some of the more repetitive verdicts,^'’ and of some of the lists of
bishops.^’ There are occasionally interesting variations in the wording of
statements made. In the eighth session, after the reinstatement of
Theodoret of Cyrrhus, we have the acclamation, ‘May the church be
restored to the orthodox teacher Theodoret’ (Acts VIII. 15). By 600,
after the condemnation of a number of Theodoret’s writings at the
council of 553, this was an embarrassment, and in the Greek Acts the
words ‘the orthodox teacher’ are omitted.

There are significant variations between the Greek and Latin versions
in the minutes of Session XVI (XVII in the Greek edition), at which the
Roman delegates protested unavailingly against Canon 28, which
assigned new powers to the see of Constantinople. In support of this
canon the archdeacon of Constantinople produced the canons of the
Council of Constantinople of 381, which had accorded Constantinople

22 See Price and Gaddis, I, 78-85.

23 These are the Acts on Carosus and Dorotheus (Price and Gaddis, II, 164-8), on
Photius and Eustathius (ibid., 169-82), and on Domnus of Antioch (ibid., 310-12).

24 Of the three just listed, the first two survive only in Greek, the third only in Latin.

25 For example, the Greek edition omits the acts of the session of the Council of Ephesus
of 22 July 431, which were read out at Ephesus II and consequently found their way
into the Acts of Chalcedon (I. 911^5).

26 For example, the Greek edition gives at III. 96 the bare names of the bishops who
condemned Dioscorus but omits their verdicts.

27 For example, the Latin edition omits or abbreviates the attendance lists of Sessions
IL III and IV.

TRUTH, OMISSION AND FICTION IN THE ACTS 101

honorary primacy in the east. The Roman delegates rejected them as
lacking authority - they were indeed absent from the standard collec¬
tion of conciliar canons that was used throughout the council.^® These
Romans objections are frankly recorded in the Latin Acts, but the Greek
edition waters them down, reducing the Roman rejection of all these
canons to an expression of unease; it likewise toned down the words with
which at the end of the session the Roman delegates attempted to veto
the new canon.^® Likewise, in the third session, when the Roman dele¬
gates pronounced sentence against Dioscorus, they referred to the pope
as ‘the head of the universal church’, as we know from the text preserved
in a letter of Pope Leo’s; but in the conciliar acts, in both the Greek and
Latin editions, this high claim for Roman authority is omitted.^°

Both the Latin and Greek editions of the acts omit one curiosity in the
original list of episcopal verdicts delivered against Dioscorus of Alexan¬
dria in Session III. The Roman deacon Rusticus in his edition of the
Latin version gives a number to each of these verdicts, starting with that
of Anatolius of Constantinople, as no 9. He informs us that in the orig¬
inal list (now lost) the three Roman delegates (who counted as the senior
bishops at Chalcedon) were numbered 6-8 and preceded by five still
more august judges who had pronounced sentence against Dioscorus, no
5 being Pope Leo himself, no 4 St Peter, and 1-3 the three Persons of the
Most Holy Trinity.^^ It was clearly an embarrassment to the government
that the list of bishops who pronounced sentence against Dioscorus was
on the short side, only 192 out of the 370 bishops who attended the
council; so to boost the number the Persons of the Trinity were
dragooned into service.^^

28 The existence of a collected edition of canons is revealed by the citation of canons
with a consecutive numbering (e.g. at Session on Carosus and Dorotheus 8). The
absence of the canons of 381 from this collection was pointed out by the Roman dele¬
gate Lucentius (XVI. 12) and is confirmed by the fact that the archdeacon of
Constantinople had to read them from a separate document (see Price and Gaddis,
III, 86, n. 39).

29 See Price and Gaddis, III, 84 with nn. 30 and 32, and p. 91 with n. 51.

30 Price and Gaddis, II, 69-70, with nn. 96 and 100. For signs of a similar bias in the
editing of the documentary collections see I, 80-1.

31 ACO 2.3, p. 305.

32 The variety of efforts to produce an impressive list of bishops who condemned
Dioscorus is also evidenced by the survival of two quite independent subscription
lists, one in the Greek and one in the Latin edition of the Acts; see Price and Gaddis,
II, 36-7, 93-110.

102

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

But there are problems about virtually all the bishops’ lists. We have
supposedly complete attendance lists for the first four and the sixth
sessions, and a list of metropolitans present for most of the other
sessions. In addition we have subscription lists (that is, lists of signato¬
ries) for Dioscorus’ condemnation, for the Definition, and for Canon 28.
Schwartz demonstrated that all the attendance lists, save that for the
third session, are based on the version of the subscription list to the Defi¬
nition that is included in the acts. There are a number of bizarre features
here, of which I can only offer a tentative and partial explanation.^^

The subscription list for the Definition that we find in the acts was
carefully compiled: it is full and accurate on the cases where absent
bishops were represented by other bishops or their clergy. Yet it is not
complete: it omits 28 names that we happen to know of from another
edition of the list (otherwise less complete) that survives in Latin and
Syriac canonical sources.

All but one of the full attendance lists are based on this subscription
list to the Definition contained in the acts: this is clear from the fact that
they present essentially the same names in the same (inevitably arbi¬
trary) order and that all the omissions in the subscription list recur in all
the attendance lists (save, as I have said, for the list for Session III, which
is wholly independent and sets its own problems). These attendance lists
include the odd name of someone we happen to know was absent - for
example, Meliphthongus of Juliopolis, who said when signing Dioscorus’
condemnation that he had only just arrived, but is listed as having
attended all the earlier sessions.^^ It is true that some of the omissions
can be confirmed as accurate from data in the minutes, and it might
appear that some corrections were made in these lists on the basis of the
original, authentic attendance lists. But there are two problems with this.
Firstly, if the lists were revised through comparison with the original
attendance lists, why do they not include some at least of the 28 names
omitted by accident from the subscription list to the Definition?
Secondly, it is highly likely that attendance fell significantly in Sessions
II-IV because of the suspension at the end of the first session, and
restoration only in the course of the fourth session, of five metropolitan

33 Schwartz (1937). Honigmann (1942-3) refined on Schwartz’s data and offered his
own solution. My own discussion is in Price and Gaddis, III, 196-201.

34 This is Dionysius Exiguus, Collectio Dionysiana {ACO 2.2, pp. 157-69), translated in
Price and Gaddis, II, 232-9, as emended by Honigmann (1942-3).

35 Acts 1. 3.164, II. 1.128, 111. 97.235 (Greek version. Price and Gaddis, II, 98).

TRUTH, OMISSION AND FICTION IN THE ACTS 103

bishops who had collaborated with Dioscorus at Ephesus II.Yet the
attendance lists show only a modest fall in attendance in Sessions II and
IV.

The council was uniquely well attended; it was indeed the ecumenical
council with the highest attendance until the First Vatican Council of
1869-70. It was clearly important to prove this by full and impressive
attendance and subscription lists. Why then were the lists so imperfect?
The sheer number of bishops present - around 370^’ - seems to have led
to confusion, compounded by the presence in attendance on the bishops
of numerous lower clergy, some of whom make it into the lists through
representing absent bishops.One must presume that the original
signed lists, whether subscription lists or attendance lists, were a
complete mess, and that the notaries took the easy way out of taking one
single list - a fairly complete subscription list to the Definition - and
concocting on its basis neat but bogus attendance lists.

If this explanation be accepted, we may then recognize in the inde¬
pendent attendance list for the third session a survival of the original,
authentic attendance lists: it is indeed a most unsatisfactory document,
marred by a number of omissions detectable from the minutes that
follow, and often inaccurate as to which bishops were present in person
and which were represented by others.^® Why was this list not tidied up
like the rest? It may be relevant that this was the only session that was
not chaired by a lay official but by a bishop (namely, Paschasinus of Lily-
baeum, the senior Roman delegate). Somehow this led to the
employment, at some key stage of editing, of less competent, but more
honest, scribes.

To what extent do these bogus lists mislead the reader as to the course
of the council? They do not disguise the poor attendance at Dioscorus’
trial in Session III (at which scarcely over 200 bishops were present),
since the authentic attendance list for this session was preserved. What
they do disguise, however, is the poor attendance at Sessions II and IV.
The virtually identical attendance lists for Sessions II and IV give 305

36 See Acts 1.1068 and IV. 14-18.

37 For this calculation see Price and Gaddis, III, 193-6.

38 MacMullen (2006), 79 estimates the number of clergy in attendance on their bishops
at councils (but not counting as active participants) at anything up to twice the
number of bishops.

39 See Price and Gaddis, II, 35-6, with footnotes on pp. 38-41. In the minutes that follow
speeches are attributed to six bishops who were not personally present at the council
(see footnotes on pp. 75-91).

104

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

names. This may be compared to the 343 listed attendances for Session
I and to the 324 for Session VI,the fall from Session I being accounted
for by the absence, from all the sessions after the first, of the 20 Egyptian
bishops. At the end of Session I not only Dioscorus but also five other
leading metropolitans were deposed, and were not restored till a midway
point in Session IV. This will have led to the non-participation in the
council for a whole week not only of these bishops but also of the great
majority of the 60 suffragans who had accompanied them to the council;
we may also surmise that some other bishops will have absented them¬
selves from Sessions II and IV out of solidarity."^^ This was a sufficiently
large number to dent the ability of the council to claim to be the voice
of the whole Church. What saved the council was a decision to cancel
the sentence of deposition pronounced by the lay chairman at the end
of Session I. Instead, Dioscorus was put on trial and deposed at Session
III, while the other five deposed metropolitans were all reinstated in the
course of the following session, after they had expressed their adherence
to the majority by signing Leo’s Tome (Acts IV. 16).

Once the suspended metropolitans and all their suffragans returned
to full participation in the council, the only group of abstainers were the
Egyptian bishops; at the fourth session the other bishops pressed for
them to be forced to accept the council’s decrees, but the lay chairman
accepted their plea that, while there was no bishop of Alexandria to give
a lead, they could not speak for the Egyptian Church. Apart from them,
all the bishops attending the council were obliged to sign the Defini¬
tion,'*^ and an appearance of unanimity was achieved.

40 Since these two lists were based on a less than complete subscription list to the Defi¬
nition, as already mentioned, these figures are actually too low. We may presume that
all the 370 bishops (or bishops’ representatives) who came to the council attended the
first session (barring the odd late arrival) and that all the bishops, save the Egyptians,
attended the sixth. Attendance at the latter was made compulsory by the presence of
the emperor himself.

41 However, the inclusion of Palestinian bishops in the minority that interrupted the
reading of Leo’s Tome at Session II (Acts II. 24-6) shows that not all of them chose
to share the absence from the council of the suspended Juvenal of Jerusalem; more¬
over the Illyrian bishops, who largely absented themselves from Session III, were also
prominent at Session II (Acts II. 24-6, 37^4). Attendance at Sessions II and IV will
have been significantly higher than that at Session III (the trial of Dioscorus), where
attendance was diminished yet further by the unpopularity of the victimizing of
Dioscorus.

42 See Price and Gaddis, II, 207.

TRUTH, OMISSION AND FICTION IN THE ACTS 105

Conclusion

Of my three categories of truth, omission and fiction, the first, fortu¬
nately, greatly outweighs the third. We have no reason to suppose that
the Acts of Chalcedon are seriously misleading as to the proceedings of
the council. Compared to the acts of other councils, they are extraordi¬
narily frank about the degree of disagreement and dissent, even if we
can from time to time detect some degree of toning down.

The category of omission is much more significant than that of fiction.
We must not read the Acts of Chalcedon as if they were a complete
record. If the acts of the first session are so long that not all the docu¬
ments they contain can actually have been read out, the acts of some of
the later sessions, most obviously the crucial fifth session, are suspi¬
ciously brief. As we read the acts, we must allow for the omission of
obiter dicta that it was in no one’s interest to record for posterity. Above
all, we must remember the crucial importance of the unminuted meet¬
ings chaired by Archbishop Anatolius. Nor shall we forget the work of
committees (notably those that drafted and revised the Definition) or
the role of private lobbying and confabulation. The historian of Chal¬
cedon has before him the longest single document that survives from the
early Church; but he needs to supplement it through two gifts essential
for any historian - common sense and imagination.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, ed. Eduard Schwartz and others (Berlin,
1914-).

Eusebius, Life of Constantine, trans. with introduction and commentary by
Averil Cameron and S.G. Hall (Oxford, 1999).

Honigmann, Ernest (1942-3), ‘The Original Lists of the Members of the
Council of Nicaea, the Robber Synod and the Council of Chalcedon’, Byz
16: 20-80.

Kidd, B.J. (1922), A History of the Church to A.D. 461, 3 vols (Oxford).

MacMullen, Ramsay (2006), Voting for God in Early Church Councils (New
Haven & London).

Michael the Syrian, Chronicle. Chronique de Michel le Syrien Patriarche
Jacobite dAntioche (1166-99), ed. and trans. J.-B. Chabot, vol. 2 [trans. of
VII-XI] (Paris, 1901).

Price, Richard and Gaddis, Michael (2005), The Acts of the Council of Chal¬
cedon, 3 vols, TTH 45 (Liverpool).

106

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Price, R.M. (2009). Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553, trans. with
introduction and notes, 2 vols, TTH 51 (Liverpool).

Schwartz, Eduard (1923), ‘Aus den Akten des Concils von Chalkedon’,
ABAW.PPH 32.2.

-(1937), liber die Bischofslisten der Synoden von Chalkedon, Nicaea und

Konstantinopel, ABAW.PH NF 13 (Munich).

- (1939), Drei dogmatische Schriften Justinians. ABAW.PH NF 18

(Munich).

WHY DID THE SYRIANS REJECT
THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON?i

Andrew Louth

After the deposition of Dioscorus of Alexandria at the Synod of Chal-
cedon, the ‘Oriental bishops and those with them’ are represented as
exclaiming: ‘Many years to the senate! Holy God, Holy Strong, Holy
Immortal, have mercy on us. Many years to the emperors! The impious
are always routed; Christ has deposed Dioscorus.’^ This is the earliest
record of the Thrice-Holy Hymn, the Trisagion. It is not clear why the
bishops of the diocese of Oriens thought it appropriate to exclaim it on
this occasion. It is striking, however, that barely a quarter of a century
later, the thrice-holy hymn, with the theopaschite addition (‘Holy God,
Holy Strong, Holy Immortal, who was crucified for us, have mercy on
us’) became popular in Antioch, as a chant encapsulating the rejection
of the Chalcedonian Definition. For even though the controversy over
the Trisagion was really a misunderstanding between a Trinitarian
understanding of the hymn, found in Constantinople, in which the
theopaschite addition implied the passibility of the divine nature,
rejected on all sides, and a Christological understanding of the hymn,
which affirmed that Christ suffered on the Cross, for the Syrians the
theopaschite version of the Trisagion underlined what they believed to
be the defect of Chalcedon, namely its failure to affirm with uncompro¬
mising clarity that through the Incarnation, God himself, the second
person of the Trinity, assumed human nature and human experience,
and in particular the human experience of death, in order to redeem
humanity from the curse of death unleashed by the Fall of Adam. It is
this Syrian rejection of Chalcedon that this paper seeks to reflect on. Not
so much the question as to why the non-Chalcedonians, dubbed by their
opponents ‘monophysite’ (or by modern scholars ‘miaphysite’, despite
the barbarity of such a Greek construction), rejected Chalcedon, which

1 This paper has been vastly improved by the comments and suggestions of Mary
Whitby and Richard Price, to whom I want to record my gratitude.

2 Acts of Chalcedon I. 1071, Price and Gaddis (2005), I, 364 (changing ‘Almighty’ to
‘Strong’, surely a more natural translation of loxupog).

108

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

is a fairly straightforward matter, but specifically the ‘Syrians’, symbol¬
ized in the contrast I have just made between the Oriental bishops
chanting the Trisagion in its original unadorned form against Dioscorus
and their successors making of the Trisagion with its theopaschite addi¬
tion an emblem of their rejection of the very Chalcedon that had
deposed Dioscorus. My question is not just why did the monophysites
reject Chalcedon, but how did the Syrian bishops come to be amongst
their number?

This question is rendered the more puzzling by the way in which the
course of the fifth-century Christological controversy is generally
presented (and this is true of the excellent introduction to the volumes
we are celebrating today, though some of the footnotes suggest another
story). It is presented as a clash between the Alexandrian tradition and
the Antiochene tradition, or more precisely between the Alexandrian
school and the Antiochene school. These two ‘schools’ are often repre¬
sented as having a long history, reaching right back to the beginnings of
Christianity, and coming to a collision over Christology in the late fourth
and early fifth century - a collision that led to the synods of Ephesus I,
Ephesus II (the ‘Robber Synod’, as Pope Leo called it), and Chalcedon.
For the later dominant traditions of Eastern Orthodoxy and Latin Chris¬
tianity, the issue was solved at Chalcedon, but in reality the result of
these synods was a couple of schisms that last to the present day.
Ephesus I produced a schism in which those who refused to accept the
condemnation of Nestorius formed a separate church, very soon located
over the imperial frontier in Persia, now called the ‘Assyrian Church of
the East’; Chalcedon produced a schism that divided the Christians in
the eastern part of the Empire: in the course of the sixth century a sepa¬
rate hierarchy was established, while by the middle of the seventh
virtually all these Christians who rejected Chalcedon found themselves
under Islam, beyond the frontier of the Empire, where they have
remained, and are today known as the ‘Oriental Orthodox’. The strong¬
holds of the Oriental Orthodox were, from the beginning, in Syria,
where they were called ‘Jacobites’, after Jacob Baradaeus, who estab¬
lished the monophysite hierarchy, and in Egypt, where they were called
‘Theodosians’, after Theodosius, a contemporary of Jacob. It seems
obvious why the non-Chalcedonians include the Egyptians. But why the
Syrians, if the controversy was the culmination of a long-standing rivalry
between the two opposing schools of Alexandria and Antioch?

The abandonment of Chalcedon by Antioch and Syria did not take
place overnight. To begin with, the bishops of the Orient (which

WHY DID THE SYRIANS REJECT THE COUNCIL? 109

included Asia Minor and Thrace, as well as Syria) upheld Chalcedon:
the Emperor Leo Ts encyclical letter {Encyclia or Codex Encyclius) of
457, issued after the murder of the Alexandrian patriarch Proterius,
received from the bishops of the Empire, including the Syrians, a
response almost entirely favourable to Chalcedon, though this unanimity
had more to do with desire for peace and genuine outrage at the murder
of Proterius than any enthusiasm for the Chalcedonian Definition.^ But
in the wake of Emperor Zeno’s Henotikon (482), Antioch became more
determinedly anti-Chalcedonian; the three main names associated with
Antioch in this period were Peter the Fuller, patriarch with interruptions
from 470 until his death in 488, Philoxenus of Mabbog and Severus,
patriarch from 512 to 518. It is true, nonetheless, that Antioch was later
to swing behind the pro-Chalcedonian policies of Justinian, with Patri¬
arch Ephraem (526-44) and his successors, but the Syrian hinterland by
then had become strongly Jacobite, and by the seventh century the patri¬
archal see was in Jacobite hands. Nevertheless, as we recount this story,
we find ourselves with a sense of having been here before. Antioch had
a long history of controversy and divided loyalties: in the fourth century.
Bishop Leontius, already presiding over a divided church in Antioch, is
said to have stroked his white hairs and remarked, ‘When this snow
melts, there will be lots of mud’.'* For Antioch was not a tightly organ¬
ized see, and its control over the rest of the Oriens diocese was
comparatively weak. There were many powerful metropolitan bishops;
centres of learning like Edessa and Nisibis represented traditions quite
independent of Antioch. The patriarch of Antioch had nothing like the
power of the patriarch of Alexandria, who ruled a region in which
Alexandria was supreme, and who had no metropolitan bishops to chal¬
lenge his sovereign rule. Furthermore, Antioch was in other ways
unstable. The frontier with Persia was not far away; several times in the
sixth century the city was sacked by the Persians, or found itself the
centre of military operations against them. Furthermore, its geological
situation was unfortunate. It was prone to earthquakes; in the century
and a half after Chalcedon there were nine earthquakes, some of them
serious.^ The monolithic entity conjured up by talk of the ‘school’ of
Antioch does not correspond to any historical reality.

3 See the analysis of the content and reception of the Codex Encyclius in Grillmeier
(1987), 195-235.

4 Sozomen, Hist. Eccl. 111. 22. 9 (ed. Bidez-Hansen, p. 135,16-17).

5 For this account of Antioch see Grillmeier (2002), 179-91.

110

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

In the case of Alexandria there is greater coherence - the patriarch,
as we have seen, could exercise real control, and Alexandria had largely
unchallenged dominance - nevertheless, even the picture that is often
built up of the Christology of an ‘Alexandrian school’ is unconvincing in
many respects. This ‘school’ is often assimilated to the ‘Catechetical
School’, the history of which Eusebius traces back to Pantaenus, the
teacher of Clement of Alexandria, but apart from the period of Origen
and his immediate successors, it looks very much as if Eusebius is spin¬
ning a story out of very little evidence.'’ But whatever it is that we know,
or don’t know, about the history of the Catechetical School of Alexan¬
dria, nothing of it bears on the question of ‘Alexandrian Christology’,
which is really the Christology of Athanasius and Cyril, neither of whom
had anything directly to do with the Catechetical School, so far as we
know, though if it existed during their patriarchates, then we may
suppose they exercised some oversight. But we only suppose, and our
suppositions are really very puzzling: if Didymus the Blind, the great
Alexandrian exegete and theologian (c.313-98), was appointed head of
the Catechetical School by Athanasius as Rufinus affirms,’ it is hard to
see what links there might be between their theologies.

I want to suggest another way of looking at the Christological contro¬
versies that culminated in Ephesus and Chalcedon, mainly by way of
assisting our understanding of what took place in the aftermath of Chal¬
cedon. To talk of a collision of two ‘schools’ suggests two more-or-less
equivalent, broadly-based tendencies in fourth-century theology that at
some point were bound to encounter one another and result in some sort
of resolution that ultimately respected the deepest convictions of each:
there is a distinct whiff of Hegelianism about such a scenario, and we
shouldn’t be surprised - nor should we necessarily be predisposed to
accept such a model. I want to suggest that we deconstruct this language
of schools, but in different ways. The ‘Antiochene’ school may well
correspond to ideas passed on from master to disciple: from Diodore to
Theodore to Nestorius, though it has been suggested that such a
‘genealogical’ representation of Antiochene theology may well be a

6 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. V. 10. 1 (Pantaenus appointed head of ‘a school of sacred
learning’ in Alexandria, which ‘has lasted till our own time’); Hist. Eccl. VI presented
episodically a succession of heads of this school. There is a good deal of scholarly
doubt as to what lies behind Eusebius’ account.

7 Rufinus, Hist. Eccl 11.7.

WHY DID THE SYRIANS REJECT THE COUNCIL? Ill

construction of Alexandrian polemic,® and when it moves beyond tradi¬
tions of scriptural exegesis to Christology, then it becomes distinctly
ragged. John Chrysostom illustrates the sobriety of Antiochene
exegesis, but his Christology has much more in common with the so-
called ‘Alexandrians’; he has, for instance, a ‘one-subject’ Christology,
in contrast to the ‘two-subject’ Christology of Theodore and Nestorius,
and sees the purpose of the Incarnation as human deification.® It might
be better to think of Antiochene Christology as amounting to the influ¬
ential ideas of one or two theologians associated with Antioch, with
none of the sense of some sort of commanding movement that the notion
of a ‘school’ suggests.So far as the ‘Alexandrian’ school of Christology
is concerned, I would argue in a counter direction. The vision of St
Athanasius, as represented in his amazing treatise On the Incarnation,
had enormous power amongst eastern theologians, both in his century
and for centuries to come. The manuscript tradition is vast. The treatise
was translated into Syriac maybe even in Athanasius’ lifetime. The
thrust of Athanasius’ vision can be found throughout Greek theology:
from the learned theology of the Cappadocians to the simple, though
profound, insights of the author of the homilies attributed to St
Macarius.“ This is no merely ‘Alexandrian’ presentation of the central
significance of the Incarnation: it is something of nearly universal
appeal. The Christological controversy was not the clash of two more-
or-less equipollent ‘schools’, but rather a response to the dangers
represented by an eccentric, and rather scholarly approach to Chris¬
tology, associated with Antioch, by the broad consensus of Christian
confession, of which Cyril projected himself as the spokesman. Cyril had
the good fortune to find in Nestorius an opponent who, as Lionel
Wickham has put it with customary elegance, ‘lost the argument because
his picture of Christ was incredible; [...] and lost his throne because he

8 In an unpublished PhD dissertation by Helen Marie Sillett, referred to by Price and
Gaddis, I, 23, n. 77.

9 See Lawrenz (1989) and Fairbairn (2003), 203-11.

10 Theresia Hainthaler seems to me to dissolve the notion of an influential Antiochene
school in her discussion in the latest volume of Grillmeier, though I am not sure that
this was her intention: see Grillmeier (2002), 227-61.

11 See, especially, Horn. 11, e.g.‘Now therefore the one who fashioned the body and soul
himself comes and undoes all the disorder of the wicked one and the works that he
had done in [human] thoughts, and renewed and formed the heavenly image and
made a new soul, that once again Adam might be king of death and lord of the crea¬
tures’ {Horn. 11. 7; ed. H. Dorries-E. Klostermann-M. Kroeger, p. 99, 78-82).

112

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

blundered’2^ Lionel Wickham’s pupil, Donald Fairbairn, has argued for
such a view of the Christological controversy in his recent book, Grace
and Christology in the Early Church, though the argument is, at times,
confused by another set of agendas, notably the contrast he wishes to
draw between what he calls a ‘two-act’ and ‘three-act’ pattern of salva¬
tion. A similar questioning of the traditional view is found in another
recent book, by Paul Gavrilyuk,^^ as Richard Price notes in his intro¬
ductory section to the Acta}'^

Cyril, I am suggesting, was not standing for one of the ‘options’ in
early Christology, but for the broad consensus, as represented in the
compelling vision of Athanasius. Although Cyril does make use of tech¬
nical philosophical language, neither he nor Athanasius is strong in their
analysis of what happened in the Incarnation. Both, indeed, make it
clear that any analytical understanding of the Incarnation is beyond
human grasp. Both of them express by powerful and evocative imagery
the sense that Christ is a unity of the divine and human so profound that
it is impossible to separate them or to consider separately the activity of
the divine and the human in the incarnate Christ. Any attempt to do this
would frustrate the whole purpose of the Incarnation, in which the dying
of the human must be experienced (or perhaps, ‘owned’ is a better word)
by the divine, if human kind is to be redeemed (see, e.g., De Incarna-
tione 20. 5). In defending what he believed to be the common faith of
Christendom, Cyril was determined to see Nestorius condemned (for
reasons of both faith and rivalry), and made his demands of Nestorius
more and more uncompromising. This was to have fateful consequences,
for in his determination to have Nestorius condemned, Cyril ratcheted
up his dogmatic demands of Nestorius, with the intention, it would seem,
of making them completely unacceptable to Nestorius. And that he
achieved in the ‘Twelve Chapters’ (or ‘Anathemas’). The unwitting
inclusion of terminology of Apollinarian descent,^^ notably the formula
‘one incarnate hypostasis of God the Word’ to characterize Christ - alto¬
gether too close to what was to become the clarion cry of the later
‘Cyrillians’, ‘one incarnate nature of God the Word’ - caused genuine
anger amongst the Syrians who rallied to the support of Nestorius, their

12 Cyril of Alexandria, Select Letters, ed. and trans. by Wickham, p. xix.

13 Gavrilyuk (2004).

14 Price and Gaddis, I, 60, n. 209.

15 For a study of the Apollinarian (or apparently Apollinarian) elements in Cyril’s Third
Letter and the chapters, see Galtier (1956).

WHY DID THE SYRIANS REJECT THE COUNCIL? 113

sense of injustice at Cyril’s treatment of him now heightened by
dogmatic indignation. The Twelve Chapters had been unnecessary for
the condemnation of Nestorius, and concern for the oikoumene led to
the Formula of Reunion of 433, brokered by John of Antioch and
accepted by Cyril, which secured the fundamental demands of the
ecumenical faith expressed in the title for the Virgin of Theotokos and
Cyril’s requirement of Nestorius’ condemnation. The Syrians assumed
that with the Formula of Reunion the Twelve Chapters had been quietly
put to one side, something that Cyril could not concede. The ensuing
controversy was to have repercussions for a century or more after Chal-
cedon. Nevertheless, Cyril secured Nestorius’ condemnation; there were
not many as reluctant as Theodoret to acquiesce in Nestorius’ condem¬
nation, and even he finally yielded. The lengths to which Cyril was
prepared to go to make things impossible for Nestorius, combined with
his own lack of analytical clarity, mean that Cyril’s own position is diffi¬
cult to characterize precisely. Richard Price suggests in his introductory
section that there are two Cyrils, though Grillmeier’s judgment may be
yet nearer the truth, when he says that ‘[t]he historical development of
Cyril was in fact so ambivalent that his works could become a common
arsenal for contrary Christologies depending on what one sought in
them’.^® By the time of Chalcedon, as again Richard Price makes clear
beyond a peradventure, Cyril of Alexandria was the authority in accor¬
dance with which the fathers of the Council reached their judgments.
But which Cyril? Price argues that, either way, the Chalcedonian Defi¬
nition can be judged genuinely Cyrilline, but he confesses that ‘[tjhere
is something defective in a conciliar document that requires such nicety
of exegesis as we have attempted above’4^ referring to ten closely argued
pages,^® in which he demonstrates that even the ‘theopaschism’ so
ringingly endorsed by the Twelve Chapters can be found in the Chal¬
cedonian Definition.

However, the Chalcedonian Definition could not always expect such
a carefully considered reflection.^®

16 Grillmeier (1995), 23 (in the German original, 22).

17 Price and Gaddis, I, 74.

18 Ibid., 62-72.

19 There is a point that should perhaps be made here, not often raised in scholarly discus¬
sion. The interpretation of such ecclesial statements as the Chalcedonian Definition
is not just a matter of scholarly acumen: it has an impact on relationships between
Christians today. There is, it seems to me, something more ecclesially responsible

114

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

.. .the communication

Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.^**

Whereas the voice (and mind) of Cyril while he still lived, was concerned
with theological substance and could treat formulas as secondary, the
voice of the dead Cyril, ‘tongued with fire’, came to be identified with
the uncompromising clarity of the Twelve Chapters and summed up, as
a sacrosanct formula, in the phrase he took from a quite innocent trea¬
tise by Apollinarius,^^ which he wrongly ascribed to his revered mentor,
Athanasius: pia cpnotg xoi) 0eoi3 Aoyon oeoapicoopevri - ‘one incarnate
nature of God the Word’ - which he first seems to have used in the
preface to the second book of Against Nestorius?^ The so-called ‘Neo-
Chalcedonianism’ of the sixth-century was concerned to reconcile the
Chalcedonian Definition with this voice of the dead Cyril - a task just
about possible, as Price argues - with the result that, by the middle of
the sixth century Chalcedon was accepted or rejected according to
whether it was thought to measure up to the more sharply expressed
views of Cyril’s later polemic.

But before? After the pressure of the imperial will was lifted with the
death of Leo I in 474, acceptance of Chalcedon as faithful to the clarity
of Cyril’s dead voice would need some further reason. Rome and the
West had such a reason: for them the council was Pope Leo’s council and
the measure of Christological orthodoxy his Tome. Constantinople, too,
had a reason: Canon 28, which granted ‘equal privileges [with Old
Rome] to the most holy see of New Rome’, stood or fell with Chalcedon,
so Constantinople had very good reasons to endorse the council. But
Antioch? The views of Theodore and Theodoret - and Nestorius - had
probably, I have suggested, never been more than the view of a few
learned scholars. As the voice of Cyril hardened in retrospect (and
without Cyril himself there to interpret his views afresh, as Susan Wessel
has suggested) the choice seemed to be between the moderation of the

about an interpretation such as Price’s that is alive to what has been read into
doctrinal nuances, than an attempt (I name no names, but they exist) to narrow down
the significance of such an ecumenical confession as the Chalcedonian Definition,
without regard to the consequences of such a position.

20 T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, Little Gidding, I.

21 E.g., Ad Jovianum, Lietzmann (1904), 250,7-251,1.

22 ACO 1.7, p. 33,6-7.

23 Wessel (2004), 289.

WHY DID THE SYRIANS REJECT THE COUNCIL? 115

Henotikon and a more strident rejection of Chalcedon. The Henotikon
had affirmed the decrees of Ephesus, together with the Twelve Chap¬
ters, and anathematized anyone who ‘has thought or thinks anything
else, either now or any time, either in Chalcedon or in any synod what¬
everthus neither clearly condemning or accepting Chalcedon: this
was the position accepted by Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople, and
Peter the Fuller, patriarch of Antioch, thus provoking the ‘Acacian’
schism, which lasted until the accession of the emperor Justin I. The
alternative in the east was an outright disavowal of Chalcedon, for which
Philoxenus and Severus argued; none of the eastern patriarchs adopted
this position, so its adherents were dubbed ‘headless’, akephaloi. The
Syrians, led by Severus, later patriarch of Antioch (511-18), were
numbered among the akephaloi.

So why did the Syrians reject the Council of Chalcedon? This is not at
all the same question as the one that might be thought to hide behind it:
why did the ‘Antiochenes’ reject Chalcedon? - which might well cause
puzzlement. The Syrians rejected the council for the same reason as
most of the east: because they judged Chalcedon to have betrayed the
faith of Cyril, in which they saw the faith of the Church.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Coleman-Norton, P.R. (1966), Roman State and Christian Church: A Collection
of Legal Documents to A.D. 535, 3 vols (London, 1966).

Cyril of Alexandria, Select Letters, ed. and trans. L.R. Wickham (Oxford, 1983).

Fairbairn, Donald (2003), Grace and Christology in the Early Church, Oxford
Early Christian Studies (Oxford).

Galtier, Paul (1956), ‘Saint Cyrille et Apollinaire’, Gregorianum 37: 584-609.

Gavrilyuk, Paul (2004), The Suffering of the Impassible God, Oxford Early
Christian Studies (Oxford).

Grillmeier, Alois (1987), Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 2, From the Council
of Chalcedon (451) to Gregory the Great (590-604), Pt 1: Reception and
Contradiction: The development of the discussion about Chalcedon from 451
to the beginning of the reign of Justinian (London).

-(1995), Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 2: From the Council of Chalcedon

(451) to Gregory the Great (590-604), Pt 2: The Church in Constantinople in
the Sixth Century (London).

24 Translation of the Henotikon in Coleman-Norton (1966), III, 927.

116

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

-(2002), ed. Theresia Hainthaler,/ejM5 der Christus im Glauben derKirche,

Band 2/3: Die Kirche von Jerusalem und Antiochien nach 451 bis 600
(Freiburg-B asel-Vienna).

Lawrenz, M.E. (1989), ‘The Christology of John Chrysostom’, StP 22:148-53.

Lietzmann, Hans (1904), Apollinaris und seine Schule (Tubingen).

Macarius. Die 50 Geistlichen Homilien des Makarios, ed. H. Dorries, E.
Klostermann, and M. Kroeger, Patristische Texte und Studien 4 (Berlin
1964).

Price, Richard and Gaddis, Michael (2005), The Acts of the Council of Chal-
cedon, 3 vols, TTH 45 (Liverpool).

Sozomen, Hist. Eccl. ed. Joseph Bidez and G.C. Hansen, GCS NF 4 (Berlin,
1995).

Wessel, Susan (2004), Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy,
Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford).

THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE
(553) AND THE MALLEABLE PAST

Richard Price

The past, we are told, is eternally fixed and immutable. Against this
assertion, and the restriction on human freedom that it implies, the
Russian philosopher Lev Shestov (1866-1938) uttered a powerful
protest. A supposed fact, such as Socrates’ death by poison, might just
be tolerable if it was restricted to a single historical period. ‘But’, he
continued,^ -

to promise it immortality, timeless existence, which no oblivion can oblit¬
erate - who has the audacity to take to himself the right to issue such a
promise? Why should a philosopher, who knows that everything that has a
beginning must have an end, forget this eternal truth and bestow everlasting
existence on a ‘fact’ that did not even exist before 399 BC?

Shestov surely exaggerates the sheer givenness of historical events. A
death is certainly a death, and the cause of Socrates’ death is not open
to dispute, but many ‘facts’ of history have a more ambiguous character,
and it is impossible to recount any event without some degree of inter¬
pretation. It should also be noted that no objective events are directly
part of human experience: while they occur, they must be observed, and
after they have occurred they survive only in memory. Historical
memory can be reshaped by the historian. It is the reshaping in the age
of Justinian (and at the ecumenical council of 553) of episodes in the
Christological controversy of the mid-fifth century that is the subject of
this essay.

Cyril of Alexandria’s Twelve Chapters

The first ‘fact’ whose reshaping I wish to discuss is the approval that the
First Council of Ephesus (431) accorded - or did not accord - to Cyril of

1 Shestov (2001), 70.

118

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Alexandria’s aggressive exposition of his Christology in his Third Letter
to Nestorius, with its accompanying Twelve Chapters (or Anathemas).^
The letter comes in the acts of the first session of the council, but Andre
de Halleux detected an oddity: it is manifestly intrusive where it occurs,
since it interrupts a discussion of Pope Celestine’s letter, which resumes
at the end of it as if it had never been read. It does not follow, however,
that it was not read out at some other stage of the session: it was included
in the minutes that the bishops loyal to Cyril signed shortly after the
session, and when the Syrian bishops arrived a week later they were in no
doubt that the letter and the anathemas had been formally approved.^ Was
this a correct interpretation of the bishops’ signing of the minutes? There
was scope for disagreement then, as there is scope for disagreement today.

Twenty years later, the fathers of Chalcedon paid their respects to ‘the
decrees of Ephesus under Cyril of holy memory when Nestorius was
deposed on account of his errors’.'* What decrees did they mean? ‘The
teaching of the blessed Cyril at Ephesus’ is used as an equivalent expres¬
sion.® In the Chalcedonian Definition itself authority is accorded to ‘the
conciliar letters of the blessed Cyril, then shepherd of the church of
Alexandria, to Nestorius and to those of the Orient, for the refutation
of the madness of Nestorius and for the instruction of those who with
pious zeal seek the meaning of the saving creed’.® This follows mention
of the Creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople I and precedes mention of
the Tome of Leo. If we turn to the second session of the council, we find
a reading of the following documents in turn: the two creeds, Cyril’s
Second Letter to Nestorius, his Laetentur caeli letter to John of Antioch,
and the Tome of Leo. This, plus the fact that the Third Letter to Nesto¬
rius was not read out at Chalcedon at any point, shows that the Third
Letter was not included among the ‘conciliar letters’ accorded authority
in the Definition.® There is but one place in the Acts of Chalcedon where

2 See the discussion by Thomas Graumann above, pp. 39-41.

3 See de Halleux (1992), 425-58.

4 Acts of Chalcedon IV. 9.2-4, one of a whole series of verdicts in favour of the ortho¬
doxy of the Tome of Leo on the grounds that it was harmony with the Nicene Creed
and the decrees of Ephesus 1.

5 E.g. at Acts IV. 9.28.

6 Acts V. 34.

7 Note too how at the end of the first session the chairman referred to ‘the two canon¬
ical letters of Cyril’ (Acts 1.1072). Even though the two letters in question are said to
have been approved and published at Ephesus it is clear from the choice of letters
read out at the second session that this phrase includes the Letter to John of Antioch
rather than the Third Letter to Nestorius.

THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 119

the Third Letter is referred to, and that is in the second session, where
Atticus of Nicopolis requests that in the projected examination of the
Tome of Leo ‘we should also be provided with the letter of the blessed
Cyril written to Nestorius in which he urged him to assent to the Twelve
Chapters’.* No response to this request is recorded, and in the examina¬
tion of the Tome in the fourth session it is clear that it was the Second
Letter to Nestorius that alone was treated as authoritative. Therefore,
taking the Acts of Chalcedon as a single coherent text, there can be no
doubt that the Definition is not to be understood as including the Third
Letter among Cyril’s ‘conciliar letters’. But this does not wholly end the
matter. It is striking that Athens’ request is recorded in the minutes,
which are not a complete record of everything that was said. Moreover,
the committee that produced the final version of the Definition was
completely dominated by those in the Cyrillian tradition, most of whom
will have had few or no difficulties over the Twelve Chapters:® there is
no way of excluding the possibility that they, or at least some of their
number, were well aware of a convenient ambiguity over which of Cyril’s
letters they were solemnly approving.

What do we find when we move on to the age of Justinian? The Acts
as a whole became available to conscientious readers, and as such
formed a topic of discussion at the conference between Chalcedonians
and non-Chalcedonians held at Constantinople in 532. The miaphysite
(one-nature) delegates brought up as an objection to Chalcedon that it
had not received the Twelve Chapters. The leader of the Chalcedonian
delegation, Hypatius of Ephesus, gave the ingenious reply that the
reason for this was that the chapters referred to ‘the hypostases’ of Christ
in the plural, meaning of course the two natures but still contrary to the
correct formulation, which admitted only one hypostasis in Christ. “
When, however, we move on to the 540s and 550s, the period of the
Three Chapters controversy, we find general agreement, among both
the supporters and the opponents of Justinian’s ecclesiastical policy, that
the Third Letter to Nestorius, together with the Twelve Chapters, was a
text with the highest authority, formally approved at both Ephesus I and
Chalcedon. Justinian added for good measure that Pope Leo himself had

8 Acts II. 29.

9 See Price and Gaddis, II, 188-9.

10 ACO 4.2, p. 173, 21-9. The reference is to the third of the chapters: ‘If anyone in
respect of the one Christ separates the hypostases after the union...’

120

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

approved the chapters2^ Several of the distinctive themes of the letter
duly appeared in Justinian’s edict of 551 On the orthodox faith and in the
canons of the ecumenical council of 553 - notably the formula ‘one incar¬
nate hypostasis of the Word’ and the insistence that all Christ’s
experiences, including the passion of the cross, are to be assigned to God
the Word as the sole subject of attribution.

The council of 553 asserted that this was the teaching approved at
Chalcedon. The miaphysite philosopher John Philoponus claimed in
opposition that this was what Chalcedon ought to have taught, but that
it had actually approved the Tome of Leo, in which the one Christ is
divided into two separate subjects of experience and operation.This
raises another question where there is no single right answer: certainly
the fathers of Chalcedon had accepted the Tome of Leo as orthodox, but
was this equivalent to approving every statement within it? They did so
only after receiving assurances from the Roman delegates that, what¬
ever the appearances, Leo intended no division between the Godhead
and the flesh of Christ.

In all, Justinian and his council insisted that in giving weight to the
Twelve Chapters they were simply following the example and authority
of Chalcedon. This claim was tendentious, but surely we cannot say that
it was simply false. They were taking advantage of what was a genuine
ambiguity in the Acts of Ephesus I and those of Chalcedon.

The judgements on Ibas and Theodore! of Cyrrhus

The elevation to canonical status of Cyril’s Twelve Chapters had an
unfortunate effect on the reputation of two bishops who, having been
deposed for alleged Nestorianism at the Second Council of Ephesus
(449), were reinstated at Chalcedon - Theodore! of Cyrrhus and Ibas of
Edessa. Their reinstatement followed their demonstration of orthodoxy
by publicly anathematizing Nestorius.^'* As miaphysite critics of the

11 Schwartz (1939), 62. Pope Leo, in fact, acclaimed the Second Letter to Nestorius but
never mentions the Third.

12 See his Four Tmemata against Chalcedon, in Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, II, 92-121.

13 See Acts III. 9, after ‘(98)’ and after ‘(114)’.

14 To be precise, through an oversight it was only after the senior bishops had
pronounced Ibas’ reinstatement that a demand from their juniors led Ibas to anath¬
ematize Nestorius (Acts X. 180). But the exact moment when Ibas’ restoration took
effect was itself ambiguous.

THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 121

council were later to point out, they were not required to withdraw the
writings in which they had attacked Cyril of Alexandria. Theodore! in a
whole sequence of texts and Ibas in his Letter to Mari the Persian had
directed their fire principally at the Twelve Chapters. It is therefore not
at all surprising that the fathers chose to ignore these texts, but once the
chapters had received canonical status, Chalcedon was open to the
charge of having let the two bishops off too lightly.

I have discussed the Letter to Mari the Persian and its reception in an
earlier essay in this volume.Suffice it to say here that the letter, written
in the wake of the union of 433, was highly critical of both the Twelve
Chapters and the Council of Ephesus. It was read out at Chalcedon and
received apparently without comment.^® When the bishops came to
deliver their verdicts on Ibas, two of the most senior among them, the
Roman legate Paschasinus and Bishop Maximus of Antioch, referred to
the letter as evidence of Ibas’ orthodoxy.^^ This apparent approval of a
text attacking Cyril, plus the mildness of the language in which the same
letter treated Nestorius, was used by miaphysites in the sixth century to
cast doubt on the sincerity of Chalcedon’s profession of respect for Cyril
and rejection of Nestorius. The solution adopted by Justinian in the 540s
and 550s, and endorsed by Pope Vigilius in his second Constitutum of
554, was to admit that the letter was unacceptable, indeed to argue that
it was grossly heretical, and to conclude that the council cannot possibly
have given it approval; the two bishops who referred to the ‘letter’ as
orthodox must have been referring to another document, and if the
bishops after hearing the letter still acquitted Ibas of heresy it can only
be because Ibas himself repudiated the letter. These claims rewrote
history with a will, and the defenders of the chapters dismissed them
scornfully.^® But there certainly is a puzzle about the reception of the
letter at Chalcedon: the bishops must have been more offended by it
than they felt able in the circumstances to express.

There are likewise intriguing ambiguities in the record of Session
VIII, which dealt with the case of Theodoret. Theodore! had been
deposed from his see at the Council of Ephesus of 449, but both Pope
Leo and the emperor Marcian regarded his deposition as invalid, and he

15 See above, pp. 85-7. For the text of the letter see Price (2009), II, 6-10.

16 See p. 99 above: whatever comments there may have been were suppressed in subse¬
quent editing.

17 Acts X. 161,163.

18 For the sixth-century debate, which reached rare heights of sophistry, see Price
(2009), I, 93-7.

122

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

played a full role at Chalcedon from the second session onwards2^ It was
at the eighth session that the council fathers got round to reviewing his
case, in order to reinstate him formally. The result was a foregone
conclusion, but Theodoret determined to exploit it to secure official
approbation of his orthodoxy. He appeared in the council-chamber
equipped with petitions he had written protesting his innocence and
proving the soundness of his faith. But when he asked for them to be
read out, the bishops refused permission and curtly told him to anathe¬
matize Nestorius, something that Theodoret had managed to avoid
doing for twenty years. Theodoret retorted, ‘If I may not expound what
I believe, I shall not speak but simply believe.’ The bishops (or some of
them) responded, ‘He is a heretic. He is a Nestorian. Drive out the
heretic.’ Theodoret capitulated and uttered an anathema against Nesto¬
rius in the form demanded of him, concluding irately, ‘And after all this
may you be preserved! ’ The chairman closed the discussion by declaring,
‘All remaining doubts about the most God-beloved Theodoret have
been resolved.’ ‘All the most devout bishops’, as the acts put it, then
approved his reinstatement in a series of acclamations, in which he was
hailed as ‘the orthodox teacher’.^** But how many bishops, one wonders,
actually took part in these acclamations: scarcely the same ones, surely,
who a moment before had shouted him down as ‘a heretic’ and ‘a Nesto¬
rian’! At an hearing at Constantinople in April 449 to examine the
accuracy of the minutes of the Home Synod of November 448 one of the
notaries observed, ‘It often happens at these most holy gatherings that
one of the most God-beloved bishops present says something, and what
one man says is recorded and counted as if everyone alike had said it.
This is what has happened from time immemorial: for instance, one
person speaks, and we write, “The holy council said...”.’^^

In any case the acclamations were not the last word at this session of
Chalcedon. They are followed in the acts by a series of verdicts by senior
bishops, who agreed that Theodoret was orthodox, but stressed that he
had proved this by anathematizing Nestorius.This was a less fulsome
tribute to Theodoret’s orthodoxy than describing him as ‘the orthodox
teacher’.

19 At the first session he had the status of a plaintiff rather than a member of the council
(Acts I. 35). From the second session, however, he appears as a full member (II. 26).

20 Acts VIII. 5-15.

21 Acts (of Chalcedon) I. 767.

22 Acts VIII. 16-23.

THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 123

How, then, should we sum up the judgement of Chalcedon on
Theodoret’s orthodoxy? Manifestly, the council fathers were not all of
one mind. Reading though the acts as a whole, it is clear that Theodoret’s
critics must greatly have outnumbered his admirers; apart from various
incidental indications, this may be deduced from the universal respect
paid throughout the council to Theodoret’s old enemy, Cyril of Alexan¬
dria. But conciliar authority was accorded not to the majority voice but
to the general consensus; where this consensus was lacking, one cannot
attribute any particular judgement to ‘the council’. What the fathers at
Chalcedon were agreed upon was simply that, in view first of the inva¬
lidity of Theodoret’s deposition at the Second Council of Ephesus and
secondly of his public anathematization of Nestorius, there were no
grounds for refusing to restore him to his see.

How, we must now ask, was all this viewed a century later, at the time
of the controversy over the ‘Three Chapters’ - the person and works of
Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret’s writings against Cyril, and the
Letter to Mari the Persian, as condemned by the emperor Justinian?
Defenders of Theodoret could point to the fact that Chalcedon had rein¬
stated him, while his opponents could point to the evident lack of
enthusiasm with which most of them did so. The miaphysite philosopher
and controversialist John Philoponus castigated the Council of Chal¬
cedon for declaring that Theodoret was an ‘orthodox teacher’, and
argued that the Council of Constantinople of 553, by anathematizing
‘the impious writings of Theodoret against the orthodox faith’ (Canon
13), had thereby anathematized all those who accepted the decrees of
Chalcedon.^^ In contrast, the emperor Justinian, responding a few years
earlier to the same accusation, wrote as follows on Chalcedon’s verdicts
on Theodoret and Ibas:^^^

Both Ibas and Theodoret were accepted not as teachers and fathers but as
penitents who anathematized the heresy of which they had been accused and
had accepted the Definition of the Council of Chalcedon and signed it, since
it is the custom of the catholic church that all heretics who abandon their own
error and return to the orthodox faith are received into communion but are
not numbered with the fathers as teachers.

23 Philoponus in Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, II, 121.

24 Justinian, Letter on the Three Chapters, Schwartz (1939), p. 66, 28-32.

124

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

It is likely that the great majority of the bishops at Chalcedon did indeed
regard Theodoret and Ibas as repentant heretics rather than doctors of
the Church, but Justinian betrays awareness of a weakness in his posi¬
tion when he talks of their being received into communion while making
no mention of the fact that both were restored to their sees as bishops
in good standing4^

The main embarrassment, however, remained the fact that Theodoret
and Ibas, though required at Chalcedon to anathematize Nestorius, had
not been required to withdraw their writings against Cyril. Their
defenders in the sixth century argued that they should not now be
condemned for offences that Chalcedon had thought best to pass over.
And they added a telling argument: Cyril himself, when he made peace
with the Syrian bishops in 433, declared himself satisfied with their aban¬
donment of Nestorius and did not ask for the withdrawal of the criticisms
they had directed at himself; Justinian in condemning the Three Chap¬
ters was therefore going against Cyril as well as Chalcedon.^'’ What had
Cyril’s attitude been in the 430s? The council of 553 conducted a full
investigation of his attitude during this decade to the remaining member
of the Three Chapters, the person and writings of Theodore of
Mopsuestia. To this we may now turn.

Cyril against Theodore, in reality and in retrospect

Under imperial pressure Cyril of Alexandria made peace with his Syrian
opponents in 433. Those who accept the sincerity of the tones of delight
in which he wrote to Bishop John of Antioch accepting the Formula of
Union^’ may be surprised to hear that towards the end of the decade he
took an eager part, in alliance with Archbishop Proclus of Constan¬
tinople, in attacking the memory of the greatest figure in the ‘school’ of
Antioch, the not long deceased Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428).
Justinian appealed to this attack as justifying his own condemnation of
Theodore in his edicts of 544/5 and 551; Theodore’s defenders

25 The same embarrassed silence is to be found in the acts of the council of 553 (VIII.
4.26; ACO 4.1, pp. 213,37-214,8).

26 See the proceedings of the conference of Constantinople of 532 in Brock (1981), 98-
9; Facundus, Pro defensione trium capitulorum III. 5.3-7; Pope Vigilius, first
Constitutum 225 (Price 2009, II, 192).

27 In his Laetentur caeli letter to John of Antioch, Price and Gaddis, 1,178-83.

THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 125

responded by citing letters in which Cyril had apparently deplored the
assault on Theodore’s memory, arguing that the dead should be left in
peace. Ouestions arose about the authenticity of certain documents as
well as their interpretation. Since they were uniformly undated, it was
not easy to place them in the correct sequence, and a lot depended on
which of Cyril’s various and varied utterances were taken to constitute
his last word.^®

Modern historians, notably Eduard Schwartz and Marcel Richard,
have painstakingly reconstructed the chronology and sequence of
events.^® The trouble started in 435 when two priests from Persian
Armenia came to see Proclus of Constantinople, claiming (falsely) to
represent Armenian bishops puzzled by the claims for and against
Theodore of Mopsuestia advanced by rival factions, but in fact desirous
to stir up trouble. Proclus responded with his Tome to the Armenians,
which included a florilegium of allegedly heretical excerpts, to which he
attached no name but which he and everyone else knew came from
Theodore. The excerpts were not found in the least shocking by Ibas,
newly elected bishop of Edessa, who translated them into Syriac in order
to win them wider circulation.

In 438 Proclus of Constantinople wrote to John of Antioch more than
once, deploring Ibas’ circulation of the heretical excerpts, and pressing
John to make Ibas, and indeed all the Syrian bishops, sign the Tome to
the Armenians and anathematize the excerpts. John replied deploring
the attempt to anathematize a writer who in his lifetime had suffered no
criticism from the orthodox (including Proclus himself). At the same
time John appealed to Cyril of Alexandria, urging him to use his influ¬
ence to restore peace to the churches. Cyril, meanwhile, had been
approached by a number of clergy and high-ranking laymen in Antioch,
who accused the Syrian bishops of using Theodore as a cloak to spread
Nestorianism. He therefore replied to John in far from friendly terms,
attacking Theodore and stressing the need to root out Nestorianism
from the Syrian clergy. The representations from his friends in Syria also
spurred him into literary activity: supplied with a new florilegium of
numerous excerpts both from Theodore and from the earlier Anti-

28 For a fuller, and fully documented, account see my introduction to Session V of the
Council of Constantinople of 553, Price (2009), 1, 271-7.

29 See Schwartz (1914), 27-36, and Richard (1942), 303-31. More recent is Abramowski
(1992), and the brief accounts in Pietri (1998), 26-32 and Chadwick (2001),
548-51.

126

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

ochene theologian Diodore of Tarsus, he rapidly compiled three books
Against Diodore and Theodore. This work made its way to Syria, where
Theodoret of Cyrrhus wrote a reply. In defence of Diodore and
Theodore.

In the meantime all sides in the controversy appealed to the emperor
Theodosius II. Cyril severely criticized the stance of the Syrian bishops
and urged the emperor to steer well clear of the heresy of Diodore and
Theodore, while the Syrians reminded the emperor that both he and his
grandfather Theodosius I had expressed admiration for Theodore as a
teacher. Theodosius’ response was to insist on a restoration of peace to
the churches. In a reply to the Syrians he added, ‘What could be more
useful than that you resolve together with the whole church that no one
should presume in future to do anything of the kind against those who
died in her peace?’^°

An embarrassed Proclus now wrote to John of Antioch, protesting
that, despite his concern over the ‘anonymous’ heretical excerpts, he had
no wish to see Theodore or any other deceased person condemned by
name. Cyril had no choice but to follow suit (we must now be in 439),
and wrote accordingly to all concerned. In an extraordinarily tortuous
letter addressed to the Syrian bishops he commended the caution that
had been shown by the Council of Ephesus back in 431, when, while
condemning an heretical creed attributed to Theodore, it avoided
naming its author, ‘lest perchance the easterners, respecting the reputa¬
tion which the man enjoys, might separate themselves from the
communion of the body of the universal church.’ He also conceded that
it would be better to leave the dead in peace, admitting that Theodore’s
enemies had been carried too far by their godly zeal:^^

Those who are responsible will justly hear, although they do not wish it, ‘You
forget yourselves when you draw bows against ashes; for the person you
accuse is no longer alive.’ And let no one blame me for being so explicit. I
yield to those who think it a serious matter to revile the dead, even if they
are laymen, and all the more if they departed from this life in the episcopacy.

Cyril had to some extent covered himself: he could point to the fact that
he had not explicitly demanded Theodore’s condemnation by name. But

30 Quoted in Facundus, Pro defensione VIII. 3.13.

31 Acts of 553, V. 66 (ACO 4.1, p. 106,10-14). My first quotation is from p. 106, 5-7.

THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 127

he had clearly given ground, and his more intransigent followers felt he
had betrayed them, as they had back in 433 when he first made his peace
with the Syrian bishops. The controversy now petered out. A decade
later, the Council of Chalcedon maintained a discrete silence over
Theodore.

If this is the tale that a modern historian can derive from the scattered
evidence, it is not the story that Justinian wanted to hear, or which is
recounted in the acts of the council of 553. A major part of the record of
the fifth session (the longest section of these acts) consists of documents
relating to this controversy. No attempt is made to place them in chrono¬
logical order, but the leading spirit at the council. Bishop Theodore
Ascidas of Caesarea in Cappadocia, provided a commentary that
offered a very different picture of the sequence of documents and events
from the one I have just given. Ascidas was much concerned to stress the
contrast between the letter that I have quoted and other letters of Cyril
in which he attacked Theodore without restraint: the conclusion he drew
was that the peacemaking letter was manifestly a forgery.^^ He did not,
however, deny that Cyril had on occasion exercised ‘accommodation’,
but he rearranged the chronology, to make Cyril’s final word a demand
for Theodore’s condemnation. Accordingly he criticizes those who
appealed to the ‘forged’ letter in the following terms:^^

Ignoring everything that reveals the intention that the holy Cyril had to
anathematize Theodore, they use only those statements that were uttered
out of accommodation in order fully to draw away from Nestorius’ heresy
those who were still caught in it and prevent the disorders that they suspected
the heretics would foment. Therefore Proclus of holy memory, having
received the holy Cyril’s letter, as well as many entreaties from the easterners
against the anathematization of Theodore and his impious writings, wrote
urging them to anathematize Theodore’s blasphemies and prove themselves
free of any such suspicion. But because they did not respond to the accom¬
modation of Cyril and Proclus of holy memory but on the contrary continued
to defend the very blasphemies of Theodore and to say that they were in
accord with the writings of the holy fathers, the holy Cyril, seeing that impiety
was on the increase and fearing that the more simple-minded would be
harmed thereby, was compelled to write books against Theodore and against

32 Ibid., V. 65-7 (ACO 4.1, pp. 104-6).

33 Ibid., V. 79 {ACO 4.1, pp. 110-1).

128

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

his blasphemies and to show even after the death of the same Theodore that
he was heretical and impious and a greater blasphemer than the pagans and
Jews.

And after reading out excerpts from the Tome to the Armenians, as if it
represented not Proclus’ first thoughts but his final ones, Ascidas reit¬
erated the same point:^'*

But if our fathers said anything for the sake of accommodation, in order to
separate his defenders at that time from the heresy of Nestorius, yet because
they did not accept their words and the time requiring accommodation came
to an end, they then proceeded to what is perfect and wrote what was cited
above against him and his impious writings even after his death.

What of Theodosius IPs intervention, demanding that the dead be left
in peace? This was suppressed, and replaced by the text of the edict in
which he had condemned Nestorius, with the name of Theodore inter¬
polated.^^ The edict in fact antedated the crisis over Theodore and had
nothing to do with it; but, as presented undated in the acts of 553, it was
clearly intended to tell the ‘true’ conclusion to the controversy: the
emperor had listened to Cyril and Proclus and condemned Theodore,
imposing dire penalties on those who believed, or read, or merely
possessed his books.

This was indeed a reshaping of the historical record. But was it a case
of conscious and deliberate falsification?^^ The alteration of the text of
the edict could be so described, but it may be argued that the version of
events presented in 553 was more the fruit of wishful thinking than of
deceit, on the following grounds.

(1) None of the letters (around twenty in number) that are our
evidence for the course of the controversy over Theodore in the 430s is

34 Ibid., V. 85 (ACO 4.1, pp. 112,37-113,3).

35 Two versions of the interpolated edict, including Theodore’s name, are given in the
Acts of 553 - V. 25-6 {ACO 4.1, pp. 91-3).

36 For the genuine edict see Millar (2006), 176-8. The Theodosian Code (XVI. 5.66)
gives a date of 3 August 435 for its issue, which does not fit easily with the other
evidence, as Millar notes. Schwartz (1927, 92, and in ACO 1.4, p. xi, n. 1) seems right
to dismiss it as inauthentic and to place the edict in its natural context as part of the
final clampdown on Nestorianism in 436.

37 See Gray (1997), 193-205 for acute comment on the psychology involved - not
sincerity, nor conscious falsification, but self-deceit.

THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 129

dated. Ascidas and the other bishops did not have before them the
reconstruction of the course of events worked out centuries later by
Eduard Schwartz and Marcel Richard.

(2) It was surely a correct reading of the evidence to conclude that
Cyril and Proclus wished to see Theodore’s teaching condemned, and
that their adoption (at whatever stage) of a policy of accommodation
represented not conviction but a yielding to political pressure. The
defenders of the Three Chapters were singularly unconvincing when
they argued that Cyril had had no wish to see Theodore condemned.

(3) Even the interpolation of Theodore’s name into the edict against
Nestorius could claim a grain of justification, on the grounds that its
condemnation of ‘those everywhere who share in the villainous heresy
of Nestorius’ could not but include Theodore. The interpolators of
Theodore’s name may well have persuaded themselves that they were
not distorting the meaning of the edict but simply clarifying its implica¬
tions.

The ‘real’ truth of history

All the ecumenical councils had a conservative agenda - to rescue the
truths of the Christian faith from perverse innovation. Heresy of its very
nature was innovative, while the truth had been revealed for all time by
Christ and the apostles. This theme may be traced back to the treatment
of heretics in the New Testament itself:^®

There will be a time when they will not endure sound teaching, but with
itching ears they will collect teachers according to their own desires and turn
their attention away from the truth and deviate into myths.

It was, however, in reaction to the free creativity of so-called ‘Gnostic’
theology in the second century that the changelessness of orthodoxy
came to be stressed as one of the key attributes by which it could be
recognized. This is clearly stated by both Irenaeus of Lyons and Tertul-
lian of Carthage.^®

The modern historian of Christian doctrine is well aware that the

38 2 Tim 4:3-4.

39 Irenaeus, Adversus haereses III. Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum.

130

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Christian tradition was less conservative than it claimed to be. The
development of the Christian understanding of the great doctrines of the
Trinity and of the union of Godhead and manhood in Christ was prima¬
rily carried on by theologians, but it could not but find expression in the
formal creeds and definitions composed at councils by bishops. But we
shall misunderstand the ethos and functioning of councils if we forget
that their perceived function was not to advance theology but to protect
the Church against novel teaching that distorted the meaning of the
creeds. Doctrinal conservatism was not a mere rhetorical claim but a
serious commitment, which made it necessary to respond to controversy
by looking long and meticulously at what had been defined in the past.

Susan Wessel has brought out very well how an essential contribution
to the victory of Cyril of Alexandria over Nestorius was his success in
portraying Nestorianism as not an attempted solution to a new problem
but a recrudescence of Arianism.''° Likewise the Chalcedonian Defini¬
tion insists that it is doing nothing more than protecting the Nicene
Creed.'*^ It was in the same spirit that the emperor Justinian and the
council of 553 presented their work as unadorned fidelity to Chalcedon.

Yet the very purpose of Justinian’s edicts and of the council was to
correct errors that Chalcedon had made - its failure to take on board the
full scope of Cyril’s doctrine, its evasion of the question of Theodore’s
orthodoxy, and its too easy readmission of Theodoret and Ibas. Yet the
very notion of ‘developing’ the work of Chalcedon, let alone ‘correcting’
it, was alien. The only way to solve the problem of the apparent flaws in
the work of Chalcedon was to demonstrate that its work had not been
properly understood. The reshaping of the record that I have analysed
in this essay presented a perfected and purified Chalcedon, that indeed
approved Cyril’s Twelve Chapters, that ignored Theodore only because
he had already been formally condemned, and that readmitted
Theodoret and Ibas not as teachers but as penitents. As for the Letter
to Mari the Persian, was it not plain that the fathers of Chalcedon
ignored it not because they thought it orthodox but because it was so
heretical that they knew it to be a forgery?

A consequence of this interpretation was that the differences between

40 Wessel (2004), 189, 218-24. The awareness of the importance of the charge of
Arianism and the analysis of Cyril’s rhetorical method (190-235) are the strong points
in this study.

41 Note how the final section of the Definition forbids the composition of another creed,
a reference to the finality not of the Definition itself but of the Nicene Creed.

THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 131

the situation around 450 and that around 550 were minimized. Aware¬
ness of the gradual and piecemeal development of late antique
Christology, in which the acceptance of Cyril had at first been selective
and a distinction had been drawn between Nestorius and more moderate
Antiochenes such as Theodore and Theodoret, was replaced by a
simpler and more comprehensible story, in which the orthodox had
recognized the authority of the Twelve Chapters from the very first, the
heretics had been consistently assailed by Cyril, and the battle-lines had
always been clearly drawn. We may understand too why Justinian
continued to insist that his condemnation of the Three Chapters was
necessitated by a still lively Nestorian movement."*^ Nestorianism was far
from lively by the time of Justinian, but the shifting complexities of
historical reality had to yield before the myth of a timeless and change¬
less confrontation of truth and falsity, in which the victory of orthodoxy
had constantly to be re-enacted.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abramowski, Luise (1992), ‘The Controversy over Diodore and Theodore in
the Interim between the two Councils of Ephesus’ = id.. Formula and
Context: Studies in Early Christian Thought (Ashgate, 1992), I.

Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, ed. Eduard Schwartz and others (Berlin,
1914-).

Brock, Sebastian (1981), ‘The Conversations with the Syrian Orthodox under
Justinian (532)’, OCP 47: 87-121 = id.. Studies in Syriac Christianity (Vari¬
orum, 1992), XIII.

Chadwick, Henry (2001), The Church in Ancient Society (Oxford).

De Halleux, Andre (1992), ‘Les douze chapitres cyrilliens an concile d’Ephese
(430^33^, RThL 23: 425-58.

Facundus of Hermiane, Pro defensione trium capituiorum and Contra
Mocianum, CCSL 90A (Turnhout, 1974).

Gray, P.T.R. (1997), ‘Covering the Nakedness of Noah: Reconstruction and
Denial in the Age of Justinian’, ByzF 24: 193-205.

Michael the Syrian, Chronicle. Chroniqiie de Michel le Syrien Patriarche
Jacobite dAntioche (1166-99), ed. and trans. J.-B. Chabot, vol. 2 [trans. of
VII-XI] (Paris, 1901^

Millar, Fergus (2006), A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theo¬
dosius 11 (408-450) (Berkeley and London).

42 See Acts of 553,1. 7.8 (ACO 4.1, p. 10).

132

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Pietri, Luce (1998), Histoire du Christianisme, vol. 3, Les Eglises d’Orient et
d’Occident (432-610) (Paris).

Price, Richard and Gaddis, Michael (2005), The Acts of the Councd of Chal-
cedon, 3 vols, TTH 45 (Liverpool).

Price, R.M. (2009), Acts of the Councd of Constantinople of 553, trans. with
introduction and notes, 2 vols, TTH 51 (Liverpool).

Richard, Marcel (1942), ‘Proclus de Constantinople et le Theopaschisme’, RHE
38: 303-31 = Opera Minora (Turnhout and Leuven, 1977), vol. 2, no. 52.

Schwartz, Eduard (1914), Konzilstudien. Schriften der wissenschaftlichen
Gesellschaft in Strassburg 20.

-(1927), Codex Vaticanus gr. 1431: Eine antichalkedonische Sammhmg aus

der Zed Kaiser Zenos. ABAW.PPH 32.6 (Munich).

- (1939), Drei dogmatische Schriften Justinians. ABAW.PH NF 18

(Munich).

Shestov, Lev (2001), Afiny i lerusalim (St.-Petersburg).

Wessel, Susan (2004), Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy: The
Making of a Saint and a Heretic (Oxford, 2004).

THE LATERAN COUNCIL OF 649
AS AN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL

Catherine Cubitt

The repercussions of the Council of Chalcedon for both doctrinal ques¬
tions and religious politics between east and west extended well beyond
the fifth and sixth centuries into the seventh.^ The monothelete doctrine
which prompted the papal Lateran Council of 649 was but the latest in
a series of attempts by the Byzantine emperors to achieve reconciliation
amongst the dissenting religious groups of the empire. The activities of
the emperor Justinian to enforce doctrinal agreement had rather
provoked disagreement and division, particularly a damaging schism in
the west between the papacy - who had been forced into agreement with
the emperor - and those bishops and areas which refused to accept the
condemnation of the Three Chapters. Thus the aftermath of Chalcedon
continued to shape relations between east and west, with the Byzantine
emperors still seeking compromise and pacification within the east and
the papacy anxious to avoid further schism amongst the western
churches. The theological and linguistic divide between east and west,
manifest in the mid-fifth century, had become wider and deeper by the
seventh.

While the complexities of monotheletism have concerned historians
and theologians rather less than those of miaphysitism, the controversy
is a highly significant one, both theologically and politically.^ The ques¬
tions concerning the will of Christ are of central importance to
Christology. Their exposition at the Lateran Council of 649 was exten¬
sive and penetrating, and the council itself, as I will argue below, should
be seen as a key moment in relations between the Byzantine emperors
and the papacy.^

1 Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, I, 51-6.

2 See, for example, the treatment of monotheletism and the Lateran Council in Chad¬
wick (2003), 59-64.

3 The acta of the council are edited by Rudolf Riedinger in ACO 11. 1. See also the
important accounts of Conte (1971,1989) and now Ekonomou (2007), 113-57, which
appeared at a late stage in the completion of this essay.

134

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

The convocation of the Lateran Council in the middle of the seventh
century coincided with the break up of the Byzantine Empire at the hands
of the Arabs, after long years of wars with the Persians. The inability of
the Byzantines to defend their territory and its loss to non-believers
provoked a long crisis in Byzantium in which its failure was interpreted
as divine punishment for apostasy."^ This argument was used by both sides
in the doctrinal debates - by the emperors who had sponsored
monotheletism as a compromise to win over the miaphysites, and by the
dyotheletes themselves. The emperors viewed opposition to monotheletism
as treason against the empire, and its opponents were accused of
favouring the Arabs.^ The new doctrine was espoused by the emperor
Heraclius, who issued the Ekthesis in 638 to impose it. At first, this
compromise was successful in placating the miaphysites, until orthodox
opposition to the new doctrine was initiated by Sophronius who became
patriarch of Jerusalem. As the Arabs conquered more and more of the
Middle East, theological controversy raged until the emperor Constans
II tried to silence debate by the Typos, which forbad any discussion of the
issues and rejected the doctrines of both one and two wills.*’

Papal agreement to the new imperial dogma had been solicited for
some time, but after an initial rapprochement the opposition of the
popes hardened. The promulgation of the Typos in 648 was probably the
spur for the convocation of the Lateran Synod in 649, originally planned
by Pope Theodore who died before its convocation. Conciliar prepara¬
tions were then in the hands of the very new Pope Martin, but a major
part in these was played by Maximus the Confessor, a disciple of Sophro¬
nius, and his followers, largely Greek monks who had fled to Rome in
the wake of imperial hostility and Arab attacks on Africa.^

Papal defiance of the Typos had a predictable effect: as a result,
Martin was arrested by an imperial representative in Italy and taken off
to Constantinople where he was tried in December 652 and condemned
to death. The sentence was commuted to exile, and he died six months
later in the Cherson.* Maximus was also arrested, tried and exiled in 655

4 See Haldon (1986,1997), Kaegi (2003) and bibliography contained in these.

5 Brandes (1998).

6 Winkelmann (1987, 2001).

7 See Riedinger (1992) and Allen and Neil (2002), 19-20. A useful introduction to
Maximus and his writings can be found in Larchet (2003).

8 Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne (1955/1981), I, 336-40, trans. Davis (2000), 70-2.
Narrationes de exilio sancti Pupae Martini, PL 129. 585-604, discussed by Allen and
Neil (2002), 22.

THE LATERAN COUNCIL OF 649

135

(to Bizye in Thrace).^ However, this did not stop Maxim ns and his
followers from maintaining a propaganda campaign against the heresy,
as a result of which in 662 he and his closest followers, Anastasius the
Disciple and Anastasius Apocrisiarius, were tried again. This time
they were brutally mutilated to prevent any further attempts to propa¬
gate their views, and all three died in exile not long afterwards.
Martin, Maximus, and his disciples felt the full force of Byzantine
displeasure: they were accused of treason and collaborating with the
Arabs.

In modern times too the council has provoked lively controversy. Its
acta survive in Greek and Latin versions. Naturally, since it was a papal
council, the Latin acta were assumed to have priority, but the prepara¬
tion of an edition for the Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum by Rudolf
Riedinger revealed otherwise.Riedinger’s detailed analysis of the two
texts showed that the Greek text was in fact the original and the Latin a
translation of this. Riedinger’s analyses and their exposition were
complex and included computer-based studies of the stylistic idiosyn-
cracies of the two versions. However, clear indicators of the priority of
the Greek version can be seen in the way in which many of the biblical
quotations in the Latin are in fact translations of the Greek rather than
independent use of a Latin Bible. Moreover, Riedinger was able to show
through his stylistic analyses that the speeches made in the course of the
council by Pope Martin bore all the marks of the Latin translation and
could not be considered verbatim records of what he said.^^

These discoveries led Riedinger to doubt the historicity of the council
itself and to suggest that the acta were a literary confection, suggesting
perhaps that the council never really took place. This hypothesis has
proved controversial, and it must be said that Riedinger himself has
shifted his position in the course of his numerous publications, and has
adopted a less crude position than his earlier description of the proceed¬
ings as a forgery. Many scholars, myself included, are reluctant to see the

9 See the records of the trials and exiles of Maximus and his followers in Allen and Neil
(2002), 47-119, and for an account of Maximus’ trials Haldon (1985) and Brandes
(1998).

10 Allen and Neil (2002), 116-19, 150-1. On Pope Martin see the papers in Martino 1
Papa (1992).

11 ACO II. 1, and see Riedinger (1976,1977,1981), whose important studies are brought
together in Riedinger (1998).

12 ACO II. 1, Riedinger (1981).

136

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

council as simply a sham3^ The council could have been convened but
with all the discussion pre-arranged and ‘scripted’, or the acta could
represent an artificial account of what took place, less the formalized
minutes of actual debate than a creative and literary composition crafted
to convey the doctrinal authority of the meeting. However, it is impor¬
tant to note two points, firstly, that it would have been imperative for
the council to have actually pronounced its anathemas on the heretics
and their teachings, and secondly, that the acta frequently refer to the
translation of documents from Greek into Latin before the assembly. On
the one hand these statements may be fictions designed to give the
appearance of veracity, but on the other they may indicate something of
the actual proceedings, suggesting that it took place in Latin or both
Latin and Greek.

In fact, many of Riedinger’s conclusions were anticipated by Caspar
in his 1932 discussion of the council, where he pointed to Greek influ¬
ence within the Latin text and to the clearly Greek nature of the
theological discussion; he highlighted the role of Maximus the Confessor
and his followers.Riedinger and others have taken this much further,
and it has been shown that Maximus was probably the author of some
of the conciliar canons and the compiler of a florilegium of patristic texts.
There can be no doubt that Maximus and his followers played a major
part in the preparation of the acta with their reasoned refutation of the
arguments of the monotheletes. Pope Martin may have known little or
no Greek, and it is frankly improbable that his careful point-by-point
demolition of technical Greek discussion of the will of Christ was all his
own work, whether originally created in Latin or Greek.^®

The council reflects the Mediterranean world of the mid-seventh
century - attended by the Italian episcopate, including bishops from
Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily, with submissions from Palestine, Africa

13 Riedinger (1976), 37 described the acta as a ‘purely literary product’. See, also for
example, Riedinger’s statement (1982), 120, ‘What happened in the five days in
session in the Lateran Palace in October 649? We do not know, but it is probable that
the Latin translation of the text of the acta was read out formally by the pope and his
bishops.’ Ekonomou (2007), 131 (following Conte and Riedinger) regards the
proceedings as essentially scripted.

14 See note 19 below.

15 Caspar (1930-3), If, 553-4.

16 Riedinger (1982). Ekonomou (2007), 129 points out that Martin had been apoc-
risiarius in Constantinople and argues for substantial knowledge of Greek on his part,
a hypothesis which needs further testing.

THE LATERAN COUNCIL OF 649

137

and Cyprus4^ It reflects tensions in that world, not least linguistic ones.
The submission of the Greek monks who had fled from Africa is made
in Greek, but the letters of the African bishops are drafted in Latin. How
far was this a bilingual world? The bishop of Sardinia, Deusdedit of
Cagliari, is one of the most prominent individual bishops shown in the
acta. After the exile of Maximus, his follower Anastasius wrote in his
support to the monks of Cagliari, a letter now extant only in a Latin
translation but originally drafted in Greek.These monks were presum¬
ably a refugee Greek colony, but this correspondence raises the question
of the extent to which Greek was known and understood in Sardinia.

There are practical concerns behind the production of the bilingual
acta which also merit consideration. The monothelete controversy was
effectively a Greek controversy, and the majority of the documents
produced at the council were already in that tongue. If we take at face
value the statements within the council that Greek documents were read
out in Latin translation, then embryonic versions of the proceedings
already existed in both languages.^® The final preparation of the bilin¬
gual texts was simply a further step. One can also question further the
view that in some way the production of the Greek text was disassoci¬
ated from Martin himself; one might rather see the creators of the
bilingual versions as working on behalf of the pope. Perhaps one should
associate their production with Maximus’ follower, Anastasius Apoc-
risiarius, who may have played an important role in their composition.
I suggest this because we know from subsequent accounts that Anasta¬
sius was fluent in both Greek and Latin (while Maximus was not) and
that he had been much earlier a papal apocrisiarius.^°

One very important key to understanding the meaning of the acta has
been provided by Alexander Alexakis in his work on conciliar flori-

17 See, for example, the list of bishops subscribing, ACO II. 1, pp. 2-7.

18 Allen and Neil (2002), 124-31 with discussion at 37-8; Winkelmann (2001) no. 137;
Conte (1989), 162. It is unclear which of the two Anastasii penned the letter - Winkel¬
mann gives Anastasius the Disciple, but Allen and Neil regard the author’s identity
as uncertain.

19 Documents originally in Latin include the submissions of Maurus of Cesena (ACO
II. 1, pp. 23-5), the letter of the African bishops to Pope Theodore (pp. 67-71), the
letter of Bishop Stephen of Bizacena to the emperor (pp. 75-9), the letters of Bishops
Gulosus, Probus and other bishops to Patriarch Paul (pp. 81-95), and the letter of
Victor of Carthage to Pope Theodore (pp. 97-103). For an examination of the Greek
and Latin texts behind different documents see Riedinger (1980,1981,1983).

20 Allen and Neil (2002), 24, 98-9. Winkelmann and others (1998- ), I, 79-80, no. 237.

138

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

legia.^^ Here he shows how much careful preparation went into the
convocation of a major theological council. The Council of Constan¬
tinople in 553 was a landmark in this respect in its use of florilegia which
must have been put together before the council. He argues that it is clear
that the extensive documentation discussed in the course of this council
had been organized before the meeting itself. The Council of Constan¬
tinople seems to have been a model in this respect for the Lateran
Council of 649, which relied on florilegia both of orthodox testimonies
and of heretical texts. He regards these two councils - and parts of the
Second Council of Nicaea - as ‘stage-managed’, which seems to me a
better description of their proceedings. For these reasons, he contests
Riedinger’s view that the Lateran Council was a literary fiction and
provides it with a meaningful context by comparison with the other great
theological councils of the early Middle Ages.

Alexakis’s observations reinforce the comparison made by Caspar in
1932 between the Lateran Council and ecumenical councils. Its proceed¬
ings were clearly modelled on those of the ecumenical councils and
particularly the Council of Constantinople of 553.^^ This conclusion is
not simply an observation about form or style, but a significant inter¬
pretation of the intentions of Pope Martin and his associates.^^

The artificiality of the Lateran acta need not be a bar to historical
enquiry, undermining their use as evidence, but rather it enables us to
ask questions about what images of the council and of papal authority
were being projected in them. The quasi-ecumenical nature of the
council also sheds some light on the vexed question of the Greek acta.
The composition and publication of these in Greek must echo the acta
of earlier ecumenical councils which were drafted in this language.
While they mimic the proceedings of ecumenical councils, the Lateran
Council has not been classed as an ecumenical council. It was not
convened by the emperor nor attended by the emperor or his represen¬
tatives. In Rome in 649, it is Martin who presides over the council and
acts usually as the ultimate authority, authorising the production of
different witnesses. He convoked the council and played the leading role

21 Alexakis (1996), 16-21. See alsozlcte of the Council ofChalcedon, 1,75-8 for a helpful
account of the production of conciliar proceedings.

22 Caspar (1932) and Caspar (1930-3), II, 553^.

23 See also the discussion of Ekonomou (2007), 117-41, emphasizing the ecumenical
nature of the council.

THE LATERAN COUNCIL OF 649

139

in refuting heretical texts^'* Convocation of councils in imitation of
ecumenical councils was one means by which the new kings of the
successor states might take on imperial roles to lend an imperial lustre
to their new rulership. One thinks, for example, of Reccared at the Third
Council of Toledo in 589, or of Charlemagne at Frankfurt in 794.^^
Martin’s role at the council sidesteps imperial authority in a deliberate
fashion, just as did his failure to announce his election to the emperor.
Indeed, the legitimacy of the council was deeply contested in Constan¬
tinople. At Maximus’ first trial, his prosecutors attempted to undermine
its authority by arguing that it had not received ratification because
Martin had been deposed, which Maximus contested.^*’ Then in 656 the
same question was raised again when Maximus was under pressure in
exile from the imperial representative. Bishop Theodosius, to recant.
The bishop pointedly rejected the council, stating that ‘the synod in
Rome was not ratified, because it was held without the order of the
emperor.Maximus retorted on this occasion that councils did not need
imperial convocation or ratification to attest to orthodoxy, which was
correct: ‘What kind of canon declares that only those synods are
approved which are convened on the orders of emperors, or that gener¬
ally speaking synods are convened at all on the order of an emperor?’^^
But the fact that the same objection to the council was made twice is a
revealing one, suggesting that tacitly the council might be treated as an
ecumenical council and subject to imperial ratification.^^ Writing in
Rome after the council, Maximus designated the Lateran Council as the
successor to the fifth ecumenical council, the Council of Constantinople
of 553, describing it as the sixth council which had pronounced on true
doctrine through the inspiration of God.^°

In the Commemoratio, a text composed after the deaths of Martin and
Maximus to publicize their sufferings and martyrdoms, Martin is praised
for shedding the light of true teaching:

24 For the convocation seeACO II. 1; for Martin presiding over the council see opening
protocols to each session, 2-3, 31, 111, 177, 247; for condemnation of the heresy see
10-21,174-5,182-95, 336-43, 358-65; for the defence of orthodoxy see 252-3.

25 Stocking (2000), 59-60.

26 Allen and Neil (2002), 70-3.

27 Allen and Neil (2002), 88-9, 96-9.

28 Allen and Neil (2002), 88-9.

29 Allen and Neil (2002), 60-1.

30 PG 91.138-9. On Maximus’ conception of Roman authority see Larchet (1998), 125-
201, esp. 155-9, and Garrigues (1976).

140

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

[Martin fell asleep] after he had brought illumination to the one and only
catholic and apostolic, glorious Church of our God, by the all-holy and the
true teachings of the synods, I mean the one in Nicaea, and Constantinople,
both Ephesus I and Chalcedon, and again in Constantinople at the time of
the emperor Justinian, and the sacred and all-pious teachings of all the holy
Fathers who are both full of divine wisdom and approved, and our true
teachers, as those who wish to read reverently will find in the sacred acts of
the holy and apostolic and all-pious synod which was convened by him in
Rome4^

The emphasis on the orthodox teaching of the ecumenical councils,
upheld and reiterated in the Lateran Council, and on Martin’s role in
convening that council in Rome, is suggestive.

The independent convocation of the council is a mark of Martin’s
aspirations to action independent of imperial authority, asserting the
supremacy of the papacy in matters of faith. This is an implicit denial of
imperial authority in doctrinal matters, although the acta as a whole are
careful never to criticize the emperors directly. The Ekthesis and the
Typos are condemned as the work of the emperor’s heretical advisers,
the patriarchs of Constantinople.^^ This is an important point: the subse¬
quent trials and interrogations of Maximus return time and time again
to the condemnation of the Typos as an act which had brought the
emperor into disrepute. Maximus was careful to respond that the
emperor himself had not been condemned but the document and its
originators, the patriarchs.^^

Nor was the Lateran Council attended by representatives of the
universal Church. While it was a large council, attended by over a
hundred bishops whose names are listed, these were drawn almost
entirely from Italy. And yet, it seems that there is a deliberate attempt
within the conciliar acta to project both an image of the unity of the
Italian church and an image of the universal authority of the pope over
the Church and to show his far-flung authority.

The proceedings of the council consist of five sessions. The very first
session consisted only of the letter of Maurus of Ravenna delivered by
his representatives, giving his excuses for non-attendance and his

31 Allen and Neil (2002), 160-1.

32 ACO 11.1, pp. 182-3. At pp. 206-7 Martin says that the Typos was composed through
the persuasion of Patriarch Paul.

33 Allen and Neil (2002), 66-72,110-13.

THE LATERAN COUNCIL OF 649

141

support for orthodoxy, thus indicating the agreement of one of the most
important of the Italian bishops.^'* Throughout the council, a handful of
Italian bishops make interventions, usually of a perfunctory kind, and
these act as signals of the unity of the Italian episcopate behind the pope
and in condemnation of the heresy. Moreover, at six moments the whole
synod or episcopate speaks like a chorus, a display of the collective
nature of conciliar action. The three occasions when the words of the
whole synod are reported are in the final sessions when the heretics are
anathematized and the canons issued, in the endorsement of the
orthodox florilegium and in the condemnation of the Typos. The
collective rejection of the imperial decree, in contravention of which the
council was held, is clearly significant both as an expression of the
unanimity of the council and as an avoidance of individual action by
Martin himself. Is this image of the unity of the Italian episcopate a
conscious counter to the disunity of the Italian church in the Three
Chapters controversy?^®

The second session was occupied by the production of testimonies of
support for the papal position by overseas bishops. Here the impression
is given of the pope’s care for the whole Church, both in the reading out
of submissions from all over the empire and also in the rhetoric
employed. Letters and reports are read from the papal legate in Pales¬
tine, Stephen of Dora, a deputation of Greek monks in Rome (including
Maximus and his followers), from the archbishop of Cyprus, an
acephalous see, and a number of letters from bishops in Africa.^^ Stephen
refers to the responsibility of Peter to act as shepherd of the ‘flock of the
whole Catholic Church’ and describes how Sophronius, the anti-
monothelete patriarch of Jerusalem, charged him to travel to Rome, the
foundation of orthodox doctrine, from the ends of the earth; he says that
he was beseeched by the supplications of bishops and laity of nearly the
whole of the east.^® The letter of the African bishops of Numidia, Maure¬
tania and Byzacena to Pope Theodore is a difficult text, since Riedinger

3AACO II. l,pp. 2-29.

35 ‘All the bishops’: ACO II. 1, pp. 28-9,118-19, 194-5. ‘The holy synod’: pp. 210-17,
314-21, 364-67.

36 On the impact of this controversy see Chazelle and Cubitt 2007.

37 Submission of Stephen of Dora, ACO II. 1, pp. 36-47; of the Greek monks, pp. 50-9;
of the archbishop of Cyprus, pp. 60-5; of the African bishops, pp. 66-71,74-9, 80-95,
98-103.

38 ACO II. 1, pp. 38-47, esp. pp. 40, 5 and 42, 4.

142

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

has argued that it was composed in Rome using a Roman canon law
collection. Even if this is a fabrication in Rome, its depiction of papal
authority is valuable - it opens with an image of Rome as a spring from
which streams flow, irrigating the Christian world. It goes on to state that
actions in the ‘remote and distantly-placed provinces’ must refer to
Rome for their guidance and ratification.^^ In the letter of Bishop Victor
of Carthage also to Pope Theodore, Victor describes how the whole
world is strengthened and guided by the divinely-inspired teaching of the
pope.^^” Martin responds to this letter by emphasizing its message that
the cries of nearly all Christendom have been raised by the heresy.^^^
There is a counterpoint to these statements in the letters also reported
as sent in orthodox protest to the emperor and the patriarchs of Constan¬
tinople which refer to the imperial care for the whole Church and to the
authority of the councils convened by the emperor, the same institutions
which are now responsible for the introduction of novelties and heresy
into the Church.'*^

The Lateran Council of 649 was not a mere rhetorical exercise - it was
held in defiance of an imperial order forbidding discussion of the will of
Christ. The active role of the papacy can be seen in the report of Stephen
of Dora, appointed as papal representative in order to counteract the
invalid consecrations of the heretical patriarch of Jerusalem, by
deposing those ordained by him. Moreover, the council itself was
followed by an active programme of dissemination in both east and west.
The Liber Pontificalis reports that Martin ‘made copies and sent them
through all the districts of east and west, broadcasting them by the hands
of the orthodox faithful.’'*^ This intention is made clear in Martin’s
encyclical and in his letter to the Frankish monk and missionary, St
Amandus.^^^^ Martin not only sent Amandus the conciliar acta and papal
encyclical but also asked him to inform King Sigibert of the proceedings

39 ACO II. 1, pp. 66-71, quotation from p. 67, 38.

40 ACO II. 1, pp. 98-103, esp. 101.

41 ACO II. 1, pp. 104-5.

42 ACO II. 1, pp. 72-9, 80-3.

43 Trans. Davis (2000), 71. Duchesne (1955), I, 357: ‘Et faciens exemplaria, per omnes
tractos Orientis et Occidentis direxit, per manus orthodoxorum fidelium
disseminavit’.

44 ACO II. 1, pp. 404-21, esp. 413, ‘Propterea enim ea quae a nobis pro catholicae
ecclesiae synodaliter gesta sunt omnibus direximus... ’ (‘Therefore we have sent to all
the things which were enacted by us in the council for the sake of the catholic church’);
see Riedinger (1994). For the letter to Amandus, pp. 422-4, see Riedinger (1996).

THE LATERAN COUNCIL OF 649

143

and convene a council to discuss the heresy.'*^ The Vita sancti Eligii
records similar papal initiatives in the kingdom of Neustria, when Eligius
and Audouen of Rouen were selected to report back to the pope. The
Council of Chalon, probably held in 650, must have been convened in
fulfilment of the papal request for conciliar action and upholds in its very
first canon the orthodoxy of the ecumenical councils.'"’

The dissemination of the Lateran acta in the east was more problem¬
atic because of the political difficulties, but we know that copies
circulated amongst Maximus’ followers and were used to refute
monothelete arguments. Martin sent a copy of the acta and the encyclical
to Bishop John of Philadelphia.'*^ The Commemoratio suggests that
Pope Martin in Rome asked its author, Theodore Spoudaeus, to spread
the text."** The disputation between Maximus the Confessor and Bishop
Theodosius mentioned above indicates that Maximus actually produced
a copy in order to show Theodosius patristic proof texts.'*^ And a copy
of the acta was requested by Maximus’ follower, Anastasius Apoc-
risiarius, in a letter to Theodore of Gangra.^“ Anastasius requests a copy
from his fellow dyotheletes travelling in those parts, expressly so that he
can use the texts contained within it to refute monothelete teaching. He
comments that the persecution of Maximus and his followers has actu¬
ally served not to suppress their views but to disseminate them more
widely: ‘while banishing us to different places and regions, they contrive
to have the orthodox faith of the holy Fathers, which we too preach,
revealed further.’ The acta in their original Greek version were used as
a powerful tool against the monotheletism championed by the emperor.
They were cited by Maximus in the course of his trial.^* Maximus and his
followers clearly regarded the acta as an important weapon in their fight
against the heresy.

This evidence for the deliberate diffusion of the text emphasizes two
points. Firstly, it underlines the importance of the bilingual composition

45 ACO II. 1, pp. 422-4.

46 Vita Eligii, pp. 689-93. Concilia Galliae (1963), 302-10, with French trans. in Les
Canons des Conciles merovingiens, II, 550-65. On papal outreach to Francia see
Borias (1987), Scheibelreiter (1992), Wood (2007) and Cubitt (forthcoming), which
also discuss the dating of the council and its special link to papal initiatives.

47 Ekonomou (2007), 140.

48 Allen and Neil (2002), 164-5.

49 Allen and Neil (2002), 88-9, 96-9.

50 Allen and Neil (2002), 142-3.

51 Allen and Neil (2002), 60-1.

144

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

of the acta, showing that the original aim was to produce texts for wide¬
spread circulation. Secondly, it reinforces the active intention of the
pope and his assistants to attack the imperial position and to marshal as
widespread support throughout Christendom against the imperially
sponsored heresy. The record of Maximus’ first trial in 655 states that
one of his prosecutors, ‘on hearing that the Typos was anathematized
throughout the entire west’, accused the theologian of bringing the
emperor’s name into disrepute. In his later interrogation, it is claimed
that Maximus was the leader of subversion throughout the east and
west.^^ The implications of the anathematization of the heretics at the
synod of 649 was to require all orthodox Christians to cease communi¬
cation with them, as Maximus indeed did in response to the Lateran
Council.^^ The convention of the synod, its condemnation of the Typos
and Ekthesis and of the patriarchs, and the publication and dissemina¬
tion of bilingual acta was a highly provocative political act.

Form and content in the Lateran acta work closely together. They
were composed in Greek and Latin in order to facilitate the widespread
diffusion of their decrees. They were deliberately crafted to emphasize
the unity of the Christian world in support of the papal dyothelete posi¬
tion and to cast the pope as its Christian leader. Their careful creation
drew upon conciliar tradition and reworked it in a dramatically new
fashion.^^*

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, Series Secunda (II) 1, Concilium Latera-
nense a. 649 celebratum, ed. Rudolf Riedinger (Berlin, 1984).

The Acts of the Council ofChalcedon, trans. Richard Price and Michael Gaddis,
3 vols, TTH 45 (Liverpool, 2005).

Les Canons des Conciles merovingiens (VT-VIT), ed. Jean Gaudemet and
Brigitte Basdevant, 2 vols, SC 353-4 (Paris, 1989).

Concilia Galliae A. 511-A. 695, ed. Charles de Clercq, Corpus Christianorum
Series Latina MSA (Turnhout, 1963).

52 Allen and Neil (2002), 108-9.

53 Allen and Neil (2002), 70-1, 88-91.

54 These questions will be further considered in the introduction and translation of the
Acts of the Lateran Council of 649 by Richard Price and myself, to be published in
TTH. I am grateful to the British Academy and to the Leverhulme Trust for grants
which facilitated this research and to Dumbarton Oaks for a Summer Fellowship. 1
am most grateful to the editors for their comments and guidance.

THE LATERAN COUNCIL OF 649

145

Le Liber Pontificalis. Texte, Introduction, et Commentaire, ed. Louis Duchesne
with additions and corrections by Cyrille Vogel, 3 vols (1955, repr. 1981),
Bibliotheque des Ecoles frangaises d’Athenes et de Rome. Trans. Raymond
Davis, The Book of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis), TTH 5 (Liverpool, 2000).

Maximus the Confessor and his Companions: Documents from Exile, ed. and
trans. Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil (Oxford, 2002).

Vita Eligii Episcopi Noviomagensis, ed. B. Krusch, MGH, Scriptores Rerum
Merovingicarum 4 (1902), 634-76.

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Alexakis, Alexander (1996), Codex Parisinus Graecus 1115 and its Archetype,
Dumbarton Oaks Studies 34 (Washington).

Allen and Neil (2002): see Primary Sources, ‘Maximus the Confessor and his
Companions’.

Borias, P. (1987), ‘Saint Wandrille et la crise monothelite’, RBen 97: 42-67.

Brandes, Wolfram (1998), ‘“Juristische” Krisenbewaltigung im 7. Jahrhundert?
Die Processe gegen Papst Martin 1. und Maximos Homologetes’, Fontes
Minores 10,141-212.

Caspar, Erich (1930-3), Geschichte des Papsttums von den Anfdngen bis zur
Hohe der Weltherrschaft, 2 vols (Tubingen).

-(1932), ‘Die Lateransynode von 649’, ZKG 51, 75-137.

Chadwick, Henry (2003), East and West: the Making of a Rift in the Church from
Apostolic Times until the Council of Florence (Oxford).

Chazelle, Celia and Cubitt, Catherine, eds (2007), The Crisis of the Oikoumene:
The Three Chapters and the Failed Quest for Unity in the Sixth-Century
Mediterranean (Turnhout).

Conte, Pietro (1971), Chiesa e Primato nelle Lettere dei Papi del Secolo VII,
Pubblicazioni dell’Universita cattolica del S. Cuore, Saggi e ricerche ser. 3,
Scienze storiche 4 (Milan).

-(1989), II Sinodo Lateranense dell’ottobre 649 - La nuova edizione degli

atti a cura de Rudolf Riedinger. Rassegna critica di fonti dei secoli vii-xii,
Collezione teologica 3 (Vatican City).

Cubitt, Catherine (forthcoming), ‘The Lateran Council of 649 and the Western
Successor States’.

Ekonomou, A.J. (2007), Byzantine Rome and the Greek Popes. Eastern Influ¬
ences on Rome and the Papacy from Gregory the Great to Zacharias, A. D.
590-752 (Lanham).

Carrigues, Juan-Miguel (1976), ‘Le sens de la primaute romaine chez Maxime
le Confesseur’, Istina 21: 6-24.

Haldon, John (1985), ‘Ideology and the Byzantine State in the Seventh Century:
The “Trial” of Maximus the Confessor’, in Vavrinek, Vladimir, ed.. From
Late Antiquity to Early Byzantium, Proceedings of the Byzantinological
Symposium in the 16th International Eirene Conference (Prague), 87-92.

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-(1986), ‘Ideology and Social Change in the Seventh Century. Military

Discontent as a Barometer’, Klio 68.1:139-90.

-(1997), Byzantium in the Seventh Century, 2nd edition (Cambridge).

Kaegi, W.E. (2003), Heraclius Emperor of Byzantium (Cambridge).

Larchet, Jean-Claude (1998), Maxime le Confesseur, mediateur entre I’Orient et
rOccident (Paris).

-(2003), Saint Maxime le Confesseur (Paris).

Martino I Papa (649-653) e il suo Tempo (1992). Atti del XXVIII Convegno
storico internazionale. Todi, 13-16 ottobre 1991, Centro italiano di Studi
sull’alto Medioevo (Spoleto).

Neil, Bronwen (1998), ‘The Lives of Pope Martin 1 and Maximus the Confessor:
some Reconsiderations of Dating and Provenance’, Byz 68: 91-109.

Riedinger, Rudolf (1976), ‘Aus den Akten der Lateran-Synode von 649’, ByzZ
69:17-38 = id. (1998), 3-24.

- (1977), ‘Griechische Konzilsakten auf dem Wege ins lateinische

Mittelalter’, AHC 9: 253-301 = id. (1998), 43-91.

-(1980), ‘Zwei Briefe aus den Akten der Lateransynode von 649’, JOB 29:

37-59 = id. (1998), 95-117.

- (1981), ‘Sprachschichten in der lateinischen Ubersetzung der

Lateranakten von 649’, ZKG 92:180-203 = id. (1998), 137-60.

-(1982), ‘Die Lateransynode von 649 und Maximos der Bekenner’, in F.

Heiner and E. Schonborn, eds. (1982), Maximus Confessor. Actes du
Symposium sur Maxime le Confesseur. Fribourg, 2-5 Septembre 1980,
Paradosis 27:111-21 = id. (1998), 169-79.

-(1983), ‘Papst Martin 1. und Papst Leo 1. in den Akten der Lateran-Synode

von 649’, JOB 33: 87-8 = id. (1998), 201-2.

- (1994), ‘Die lateinischen Ubersetzungen der Epistula Papst Martins 1

(CPG 9403) und der Epistula Synodica des Sophronios von Jerusalem (CPG
7635)’, FilMed 1: 45-69 = id. (1998), 301-25.

-(1996), ‘Wer hat den Briefe Papst Martins 1 an Amandus verfaBt?’, Ei/Med

3: 95-104 = id. (1998), 329-38.

- (1998), Kleine Schriften zu den Konzilsakten des 7. Jahrhunderts

(Turnhout).

Scheibelreiter, Georg (1992), ‘Griechisches-lateinisches-frankisches
Christentum. Der Brief Papst Martins 1. an den Bischof Amandus von
Maastricht aus dem Jahre 649’, Mitteilungen des Instituts filr Osterreichische
Geschichtsforschung 100: 84-102.

Stocking, R.L. (2000), Bishops, Councils and Consensus in the Visigothic
Kingdom, 589-633 (Ann Arbor).

Stratos, A.N. (1968-80), Byzantium in the Seventh Century, 5 vols
(Amsterdam).

Winkelmann, Friedhelm (1987), ‘Die Quellen zur Erforschung des
monergetisch-monotheletischen Streites’, Klio 69: 515-59.

THE LATERAN COUNCIL OF 649

147

- and Ralph-Johannes Lilie, Claudia Ludwig, Thomas Pratsch and lies

Rochow (1998-), Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit. Erste
Abteilung (641-867), 6 vols, in progress (Berlin).

-(2001), Der monenergetisch-monotheletische Streit (Frankfurt am Main).

Wood, Ian (2007), ‘The Franks and Papal Theology, 550-660’, in Chazelle and
Cubitt (2007), 23-41.

THE QUINISEXT COUNCIL (692)

AS A CONTINUATION OF CHALCEDON

Judith Herrin

In the study of the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, the canons
attached to it are frequently neglected. This may be because no discus¬
sion of them is recorded in the official acts of 451. Nonetheless, in the
oldest Latin version and the Greek manuscript tradition of the Acts of
Chalcedon the twenty-seven canons are inserted as ‘the seventh act’, as
if they formed part of the agreed record of the council.^ The debate over
Canon 28, which is numbered to follow on from the other 27, forms the
seventeenth session in the Greek acts and the sixteenth in the Latin.^ The
canons became part of the ecclesiastical law of the Church and are cited
in sixth-century lists.

The purpose of this short article is two-fold: to examine the fate of
Canon 28, which confirmed the standing of Constantinople as the
leading patriarchal see in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the east, with an
authority comparable to that of Old Rome, and to trace the continuity
of concern about particular features of clerical life which feature in the
27 canons. Since the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils of 553 and
680/1 were devoted to matters concerning the ‘mystery of the faith’,
rather than ecclesiastical legislation, the gathering summoned by
Justinian II in 692 was the first to devote itself to canonical legislation
for 240 years.^ Because it met under the dome (troullos) of an audience

1 For an introduction to the complex history of the canons see Price and Gaddis (2005),
III, vii-viii, 67, 92-3.

2 In the later Latin tradition the 27 canons immediately precede discussion of Canon
28. This discussion clearly took place in an unofficial fashion and was later reported
to the final session of the council. In similar fashion, the 27 canons may have been
presented though not recorded in the course of the council’s meetings.

3 Full text in Mansi, XI, 928-1006; Rhalles-Potles (1852), II, 295-550 (with twelfth-
century commentaries); Joannou (1962), I/l, 101-241 (with Latin and French
translations); Troianos (1992), 46-113; Nedungatt-Featherstone (1995), 45-185 (with
English translation); Ohme (2006) with revised Greek text and German translation;
Nedungatt-Agrestini (2006) with revised Latin translation, 219-93. Reference to ‘the
mystery of the faith’ at Rhalles-Potles, II, 298; Nedungatt-Featherstone, 51; Ohme
(2006), 166. In subsequent notes reference will be made to the Nedungatt-Feather¬
stone Greek text and English translation.

THE QUINISEXT COUNCIL (692)

149

hall in the Great Palace of the emperors of Constantinople, it is identi¬
fied in the manuscript tradition by the name in Trullo. Because it was
perceived as a completion of the Fifth Council of 553 and the Sixth of
680/1, it was also known as the Penthekte, Quinisextum or ‘Fifth-Sixth’."^
Although separated from Chalcedon by nearly two and a half centuries,
its 102 canons were conceived as a continuation of the rulings issued at
Chalcedon in 451.^

Of course, many other methods of ensuring ecclesiastical discipline
had intervened during the long gap from 451 to 692, notably imperial
legislation and collections of canon law. But in their address to Emperor
Justinian II, the bishops in 692 stated clearly that their role was inspired
by the need for regulations which might raise the people ‘to a better and
loftier life’ and prevent ‘the royal priesthood’ from being ‘torn asunder
and led astray through the many passions resulting from indiscipline’.®
In this function they explicitly followed the example of the first four
ecumenical councils and proceeded to issue their own canons. Together
with the address to the emperor and a list of episcopal signatures, these
are the only records that survive.^

From the fifth to the seventh century certain features of conciliar
procedure remained the same. All universal gatherings were
summoned by the emperor (Marcian, Justinian I and Justinian II), in
conjunction with the patriarch of the day (Anatolius, Eutychius and
Paul), since they were held in Constantinople or its close environs. In
all these councils representatives of the bishop of Rome were given
precedence, seated on the emperor’s right hand; they were the first
clerics to sign all documents, ahead of the easterners. At most meetings,
lay figures played a major part in the direction of the sessions and
ensured that imperial concerns dominated the proceedings. No record
survives of those officials who in 692 performed the role of Anatolius,
magister militum, Palladius, praetorian prefect of the east, and Vinco-
malus, master of the divine offices, in 451. But thirteen high-ranking
secular and military figures were in charge of the Sixth Ecumenical
Council in 680/1 and may have been in office eleven years later to

4 Nedungatt-Agrestini (2006), 205-6.

5 Ibid. 208-9, showing how the Council in Trullo continued the work of Chalcedon by
specifying the councils and canons approved, which totalled 643.

6 Rhalles-Potles (1852), 298; Nedungatt-Featherstone (1995), 52; Ohme (2006), 166.

7 Ohme (1990) on the list of episcopal signatures.

150

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

manage the Council in Trullo.^ Under such imperial guidance, the
bishops of the Council in Truth displayed a self-conscious awareness in
maintaining direct continuity with the work of previous councils, which
they cited in their introductory letter and in the first two canons.^

At Chalcedon three laws drafted by Emperor Marcian were intro¬
duced during the sixth session, when they were read out by
Veronicianus, secretary of the sacred consistory, for the council’s
approval. The emperor wished the issues addressed to be enshrined in
ecclesiastical as well as civil law. Eollowing acclamation by the bishops,
these matters were entrusted to Patriarch Anatolius, who issued them
as Canons 3, 4, and 20 of the list of 27 probably agreed at a session not
formally recorded in the acts of the council. What the emperor had
perceived as a need to control monks and monasteries (which were to
be placed under episcopal authority), to curb monks or clerics who took
secular jobs, and clerics who attempt to move from church to church,
was thus incorporated in canon law.^^ It was at the end of the same sixth
session that the emperor instructed the bishops to remain in council, and
‘in the presence of our most magnificent officials [to] move whatever
proposals you wish... None of you is to leave the holy council until defin¬
itive decrees have been issued about everything.’^^ This indicates two
methods by which canons originated: they might be proposed by the
emperor, or bishops could bring their concerns for definitive resolution
to the highest authority in the Church. The remaining canons attached
to Chalcedon probably originated in common anxieties shared by many
of the bishops present. Whatever their origin, the rulings issued by
universal councils became binding on all Christians.

In 451 the bishops continued their work for another week, holding ten
more sessions devoted to problems of seniority between sees and rivalry
between bishops that had been addressed to the emperor. Marcian had
decided to pass them on to the council, which thus took responsibility
for establishing the independence of the see of Jerusalem from Antioch,

8 These officers signed the acta ahead of all the bishops, for example, at the final session
in 681. Three held high-ranking military positions; three were legal specialists; five
were patricians of ex-consular rank, and the last was in charge of the emperor’s
private dining room: see Riedinger (1992), II, 752-5.

9 Nedungatt-Featherstone (1995), 45-69.

10 The letter authorizing the circulation of the canons is now lost, see Grumel (1932),
55, no. 127. Most of Anatolius’ official documents are not preserved, cf. nos. 128-32.

11 Price and Gaddis (2005), II, 242.

12 Ibid. II, 243.

THE QUINISEXT COUNCIL (692)

151

the restoration of Bishops Theodoret and Ibas, and the resolution of a
number of disputes. These sessions are numbered VII-XVI in the Latin
manuscript tradition, and VIII-XVII in the Greek tradition (because
the 27 canons were inserted as Session VII).

The status of Rome and Constantinople

On 1 November 451 the final session of the Council of Chalcedon met
to discuss a canon approved by 182 bishops at an informal meeting the
previous day. The Roman representatives had declined to attend this
meeting as they had no mandate to discuss additional issues; they
announced that they considered the proceedings ‘to have been trans¬
acted in contravention of the canons and ecclesiastical discipline’; the
archdeacon of Constantinople immediately denied this and assured the
council that ‘nothing was transacted in secret or in a fraudulent
manner’.When the acts of the previous meeting were read, it was clear
that the new canon relied on the Council of the 150 Fathers (Constan¬
tinople 381) to claim Constantinople’s status as second only to Rome,
because it was the imperial city. New Rome was to share the same priv¬
ileges as Senior Rome;^^^ Emperor Theodosius had insisted upon this
promotion which placed Constantinople ahead of the other eastern
patriarchates.

The reading of this text provoked an angry retort from Lucentius, one
of the papal representatives, who suggested that those bishops who had
signed the text must have done so under duress. When this was denied,
he pointed out that the new document relied on the authority of the
Council of Constantinople (381) and was trying to set aside the Council
of Nicaea, which had given ‘Senior Rome’ highest status and honour. In
addition, he drew attention to the fact that the decrees of the 150 Fathers
of 381 were not included among the recognized conciliar canons.
Although Constantinople did not contest the primacy of Old Rome, the
Roman legates claimed that the hierarchy established in 325 was under
threat. The relevant canons were then read - Canon 6 of Nicaea followed
by the synodikon of Constantinople with its three canons.

13 Ibid. Ill, 75.

14 Ibid. Ill, 86-7. See the whole session, 73-91, and commentary, 67-73.

15 Ibid. Ill, 84. The canons of Constantinople (381) were apparently not recorded in the
list of canons cited at Chalcedon and were quoted from another document - the
synodikon of 381, ibid. III, 86-7.

152

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Both sides agreed that Constantinople frequently exercised the right
to consecrate metropolitan bishops in the eastern provinces. Indeed,
Eusebius of Ancyra complained that extremely high fees had been
demanded for this act, which made the consecration appear rather too
close to a purchase fee (simony);^® he was one of the ten metropolitans
directly affected by the new canon who had not signed it the previous
day. The secular officials then summed up, saying that ‘primacy and
exceptional honour should be reserved for the most God-beloved
archbishop of Senior Rome according to the canons,’ and that Constan¬
tinople New Rome would enjoy the same privileges of honour, and the
power to consecrate the metropolitans of Asiana, Pontica and Thrace,
but not their suffragan bishops. While those present approved of this
conclusion, Lucentius insisted that if the canon was maintained, his
formal protest against it should be recorded in the minutes. He consid¬
ered it an insult to the see of Rome and pointed out that only the bishop
of Rome, ‘that apostolic man the pope of the universal church’, had
authority to decide on such a matter. The council then disbanded.

When Pope Leo I received notification of the work of the council, he
understood that Canon 28 posed a threat to the standing of his see.
Letters from the authorities in the east, both imperial and patriarchal,
urged him to sign the document, but he refused. When he responded to
the emperor, it was to stress that the apostolic foundation of Rome set
it apart from all others.^* He noted pointedly that Patriarch Anatolius
should not covet what was not his - ‘Let him not disdain as unworthy the
Imperial City which he cannot make into an apostolic see’ - and
denounced his shameless cupidity.^® In his response to Anatolius, Leo
repeatedly stressed the authority of the Council of Nicaea, denounced
the ‘reprehensible innovation contrary to the Nicene decrees’ intro¬
duced at Chalcedon, and praised Antioch as another foundation of St
Peter, which should never fall below its rank as third in the patriarchal
hierarchy, junior only to Rome and Alexandria.^° Only ten months later.

16 Ibid. Ill, 90. Eusebius had been consecrated in Constantinople by the patriarch.

17 Ibid. Ill, 90-1. Dvornik (1958), 82-5, 91-6, with detailed discussion of the stress laid
by papal legates on the apostolic character of the see of Rome.

18 Ep. 104 of 22 May 452 to Emperor Marcian, ACO 2.4, pp. 55-7, Price and Gaddis,
III, 142-5. Cf. Dvornik (1958), 96-105.

19 Price and Gaddis, III, 144.

20 Ep. 106, ACO 2.4, pp. 59-62, trans. Price and Gaddis, III, 146-50, cf. Dvornik (1958),
98-9.

THE QUINISEXT COUNCIL (692)

153

in March 453, did he send his acceptance of the Acts of Chalcedon; in a
letter to the council fathers he again stressed the inviolable decrees of
the Council of Nicaea, and condemned the ‘vicious ambition’ and ‘vain¬
glorious pride’ of the bishop of Constantinople.^^

Canon 28 was to have a fascinating history. In the east it took its place
among the canons issued at Chalcedon and was reproduced in later
Greek records. Lists of canons already circulated, and one had been
cited during the council proceedings, for instance in session XI when two
canons of the council of Antioch of c. 330 were read out and identified
as numbers 95 and 96 of this list. Again, in Session XIII the fourth canon
issued by the First Ecumenical Council was quoted although it was incor¬
rectly identified as number 6.^^ From these citations it is clear that the
council had a book, biblion, containing a list of canons, starting with
those of Nicaea; the bishops knew the contents of this list and could
appeal to specific canons in support of their claims. They also cited addi¬
tional material, such as the creed and canons of the Council of
Constantinople of 381, from a separate codex.^^

The most influential of these lists was the Syntagma kanonon, origi¬
nally compiled at Antioch by Bishop Meletius (362-81), which consisted
of canons numbered in a continuous series. It included the rulings issued
by the ecumenical councils and the most significant local fourth-century
councils (Ancyra, Neocaesarea, Gangra, Antioch and Laodicea). After
451 the canons issued at Chalcedon were added to it, and in the early
sixth century the imperial chancellery added those of Sardica (342/3) and
133 canons of Carthage (419). The oldest surviving witnesses to this
Syntagma kanonon are a Syriac translation made after 501 for the church
of Hierapolis and a later Coptic translation.^^^ By this process of dissem¬
ination throughout the Greek east, the Syntagma kanonon was evidently
regarded as an authentic and uniformly binding list of canons.

21 Ep.llA to the council fathers, ACO 2.4,70-1, trans. Price and Gaddis, 111, 153^; and
ep. 115 to the emperor, ^CO 2.4, 67-8, trans. Price and Gaddis, Ill, 151-2.

22 Price and Gaddis, III, 10-11, 29; all three related to the consecration of bishops and
were cited by rivals to the see of Ephesus. See L’Huillier (1996), 206-7; Di Berardino
(1992), 141-2.

23 Price and Gaddis, II, 12-13, and III, 86-7, where the synodikon of 381 was cited.

24 Turner (1929/30), 9-20. Pace Dvornik (1958), 82, who claims that Canon 28 was not
included in any Greek collections before the Syntagma in 14 Titles of the late sixth
century, it must have been in the earlier witness now lost, because it was included in
these translations.

154

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

In the west the situation was somewhat different. The canons of
Nicaea were recognized everywhere as the foundation of ecclesiastical
law, and those issued at Sardica were frequently associated with the First
Ecumenical Council. In addition to the fourth-century councils held in
the east, the rulings of Carthage (419) and the letters recording the fifth-
century dispute over Apiarius were included in canonical collections. In
Rome and Carthage these were kept up to date by the addition of later
material - papal and episcopal letters.

In the course of the fifth century, however, these Latin lists were
rivalled by three independent translations of Greek collections probably
made in Rome.^^ One of these, the so-called Prisca version, is marked
by its omission of the canons of Nicaea (which were so well known that
it was not necessary to include them), its much fuller version of the
canons of Sardica, taken from the original Latin record, and its inclusion
of Canon 28 of Chalcedon.^® So despite the fact that the other two Latin
translations ignored Canon 28, through the Prisca translation it became
known in some parts of the west. Further, the third canon of Constan¬
tinople (381), which established the superiority of Constantinople over
the sees of Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem, and was cited in Canon
28, was included in all three new Latin versions.^’

Nonetheless, when Pope Hormisdas (514—23) commissioned the
Scythian monk Dionysius Exiguus to make an accurate translation of all
recognized canonical material from the Greek original texts, one of his
aims was to revise the Prisca version, considered unsatisfactory;^® and
Dionysius did not include Canon 28 of Chalcedon. His collection, which
became the authoritative western list of canons, began with the first 50
of the 85 Apostolic Constitutions, 165 canons from fourth-century
ecumenical and eastern councils, and 27 from Chalcedon, plus 21 from
Sardica and 138 from Carthage, a total of 430.^^ To these recognized
canonical rulings, Dionysius then added selections from 38 decretal
letters written between the pontificates of Siricius (384—99) and Anas-
tasius II (died 498). At least 460 letters existed in the Roman chancery
of the time, and how Dionysius chose the texts he included is not made
clear; but the effect was to raise papal responses to specific problems, in

25 Turner (1928/9), 340-2.

26 Turner (1929/30), 10-17.

27 L’Huillier (1996), 212; Turner (1928/9), 339^0.

28 Gallagher (2002), 3-10.

29 Gallagher (2002), 11-12; Gaudemet (1985), 136.

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155

letters addressed to individual bishops, to the level of canons. Dionysius
arranged the decretals in chronological order and according to partic¬
ular topics, and listed them in one numerical sequence, following the
system that was already familiar from canonical collections in Greek.

Among the letters that Dionysius chose were those of Pope Innocent
I (401-17) which drew attention to the foundation of the Church of
Antioch by St Peter, thus stressing the significance of an apostolic foun¬
dation, which Constantinople lacked. The primacy of Rome over all
other churches was similarly emphasized. Problems over the calculation
of Easter also featured in Dionysius’ list, including letters by Cyril of
Alexandria and Innocent I on how the date should be calculated so that
all Christians could celebrate the most important feast of the Church on
the same Sunday. This issue fitted with Dionysius’ understanding of the
difficulties of predicting correct future dates of Easter, based on his
study of the Great Paschal Cycle of 532 years, which had been developed
in Alexandria. It may reflect a period of negotiation between Constan¬
tinople and Rome in which the translations of the bilingual Scythian
monk played a significant role.^“

Despite his efforts to bring east and west into closer agreement,
Dionysius omitted Canon 28 of Chalcedon from his list although he must
have known that many Greek lists included it. He nonetheless included
the third canon of Constantinople (381), which gave the imperial city a
superior status to Alexandria and Antioch, the ruling on which the
Greek bishops at Chalcedon in 451 drew for support for the claims made
in Canon 28.^^ This was regularly repeated in Greek canonical and civil
legislation, for instance in Novella 131 issued by Justinian I in 545.^^
Eventually, at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 it was accepted in
Rome, in order to ensure the authority of the then Latin patriarch of
Constantinople.^^

In 692, however, the issue was still a delicate one which the Council
in Trullo addressed in Canon 36. This reasserts the equal privileges of
Old Rome and New Rome, and ranks New Rome/Constantinople ahead
of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. In support of this position the
Council in Trullo quotes the legislation of the 150 fathers of 381 and the

30 Gallagher (2002), 15.

31 Dvornik (1958), 50-53, 56.

32 Gallagher (2002), 22, n. 70.

33 Canon 5 of 1215, see Tanner (1990), I, 236.

156

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

630 fathers of Chalcedon.^'* It does not mention the primacy of honour
which is due to the heirs of St Peter who hold the see of Rome, and thus
avoids the issue of apostolic foundation, which would rank the eastern
sees of Antioch (founded by Peter) and Alexandria (by the Evangelist
Mark) ahead of Constantinople. Although emperors and bishops of the
‘ruling city’, as Constantinople was called, had accumulated many apos¬
tolic relics to enhance its position, the tradition that St Andrew had
founded the see was a later invention. It was based on a legend that the
apostle Andrew, Peter’s brother, had passed through Byzantium during
his missionary activity and ordained one Stathys as bishop in the city, a
legend that was later accepted in both east and west.^^

Developments in Eastern Canon Law

Turning now to the second aspect of this paper, I wish to examine the
development of canon law between the Councils of Chalcedon and
Trullo, to draw attention to the persistence of abiding concerns and the
growth of new ones. From the citation of canonical material at Chal¬
cedon, as we have seen, a list of early canons existed which numbered
them consecutively starting with the twenty issued at Nicaea in 325. In
the east under the influence of Justinian’s legislative activity this list was
reorganized into a collection, Synagoge, in 60 titles, which no longer
survives. It was, however, used by John Scholasticus, a priest at Antioch
who later became patriarch of Constantinople (565-77), when he
made his own Synagoge in 50 titles. This decisive development in the
east created a systematic counterpart in Greek to the collection of
Dionysius.^®

John’s compilation established a list of canons accepted in the east,
starting with all the 85 Apostolic Constitutions, the canons of the
ecumenical councils and other eastern councils (all those included by
Dionysius in his collection), plus the eight attributed to the Council of
Ephesus (which dealt with its problems), and 68 regulations from St
Basil taken to be canonical. In the east these were granted the same

34 Rhalles-Potles (1852), II, 387; loannou (I960), 170; Nedungatt-Featherstone (1995),
114; Ohme (2006), 128; commentary in Ohme (1995), 316-17.

35 Dvornik (1958), 138-80. It would be interesting to investigate whether the use of the
legend could be related to Canon 36 of the Council in Trullo.

36 Beck (1959), 144-6, 423; Macrides (1990), 64-7; Gallagher (2002), 20-1.

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157

status as papal decretals in the west. Finally, John added 87 excerpts
from the Novels of Justinian, which reinforced canonical requirements.^’

Unlike the edition of Dionysius, John arranged the material at his
disposal by topic, starting with the honour due to the patriarch and
continuing through a wide range of disciplinary matters to the date of
Easter. But both collections drew on almost identical conciliar regula¬
tions; the only major difference lay in Dionysius’ elevation of papal
decretals to canonical status, paralleled by John’s citation of the rulings
of St Basil and laws of Justinian. Although this material had often devel¬
oped from local disputes, by the end of the sixth century it had been
integrated into two distinct traditions, which laid the basis for a diver¬
gence between eastern and western Christendom, in Greek and Latin
respectively. The linguistic difference further encouraged independent
developments of canon law in east and west. John’s Synagoge provided
the basis for the first coherent body of civil and ecclesiastical law {nomos
and kanon), called the Nomokanon in Fifty Titles, made in the late sixth
century. It was further developed by the addition of imperial legislation,
local councils and patriarchal decisions.Similarly, in the west papal
decrees, local councils and authoritative statements by recognized
authorities like St Isidore of Seville expanded to form a specifically
western equivalent. The two remained unaware of each other and built
on their own traditions.^®

This division of Christendom into two legal systems was deepened by
theological developments of the sixth and seventh century, which origi¬
nated in the Greek east. Justinian’s condemnation of the theological
texts known as the Three Chapters provoked opposition in the west. The
later efforts of Emperors Heraclius and Constans II to reunite Christian
groups that remained divided by the definition of Chalcedon embroiled
Pope Honorius (625-38) and his successors in a series of debates over
the energies and wills of Christ. After considerable discussion. Pope
Martin I decided to condemn these eastern doctrines, and the Lateran
Council of 649 initiated a 30-year schism (see Catherine Cubitt’s article
in this volume).

So in 678 when Constantine IV sent letters inviting Pope Donus to
attend a universal council in Constantinople designed to end the schism.

37 Gallagher (2002), 23-5 provides an abridged list of the contents; cf. Beck (1959), 423.
Humfress (2004) demonstrates the Christianization of the law.

38 Gallagher (2002), 37-49.

39 Ibid. 49-84.

158

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

he initiated an important new phase in east/west relations.'’*’ The
emperor was determined to reunite the churches on the basis of an
orthodox interpretation of the natures, energies and wills of Christ. In
the process, the eastern Church had to acknowledge its own support of
unorthodox views, which were condemned as heretical at the Sixth
Ecumenical Council of 680/1. Patriarchs Sergius, Pyrrhus and Paul, who
had formulated these views, and Pope Honorius who had agreed with
the definition of monotheletism, were identified as those responsible for
the introduction of the error.'” In preparing the western defence of
orthodoxy. Pope Agatho (678-81) drew heavily on the Lateran Synod
and used its arguments to correct the heresy of the eastern Church.

Since the Sixth Ecumenical Council did not issue any canons, eleven
years later the young emperor Justinian II (685-95) and Patriarch Paul
III (688-94) summoned the bishops back to Constantinople in order to
review ecclesiastical legislation.'’^ Pope Sergius (687-701) reportedly
sent his representatives from Rome and the eastern patriarchates
attended, so that the gathering, which eventually numbered 220 bishops,
had a universal character.'’^ Many of the eastern bishops brought their
particular problems to the capital for resolution. Although the acts of
the council have not survived, from the bishops’ address to the emperor,
their subscriptions and the list of 102 canons it is possible to analyse what
took place under the dome of an audience chamber within the Great
Palace. The rulings reflect the advance of Islam in the 640s, which had
removed the provinces of Egypt, Palestine and Syria from imperial
control, and Slavic invasions of the Balkans, with references to
‘barbarian incursions’ traditional in conciliar records.'’'’ These were said
to have forced bishops to flee from their sees, or to have promoted an
inappropriate adaptation of Christian customs among those who
remained under barbarian control.'’^ They suggest that several partici-

40 See the imperial sacra sent to the synod of Rome, Riedinger (1992), II, 856-67.

41 The acta are edited by Riedinger (1992).

42 Grumel (1932), 126, no. 317, text lost; see Herrin (1987), 284-5.

43 Mansi, XI, 929-88 includes the list of 227 signatories, which begin with the emperor
and six secular officials, on which see Ohme (1990). Ohme (2006), 12, 25-6, points
out that despite claims in the Liber Pontificalis official Roman legates in the strict
sense did not participate.

44 Peri (1995).

45 Can. 12 (bishops in Africa and Libya continuing to cohabit with their wives after ordi¬
nation), Nedungatt-Featherstone, 82-3; Can. 18 (clerics who have abandoned their
sees, ‘on the pretext of barbarian incursions’), ibid. 93^; Can. 30 (priests in barbarian
lands) ibid, 104—5; Can. 37 (bishops unable to take up residence in their sees), ibid.

THE QUINISEXT COUNCIL (692)

159

pants seem to have requested guidance on how to look after their Chris¬
tian flocks who found it difficult to sustain the faith under Arab rulers
or Slavic pressures.

Nonetheless, a persistent anxiety about ancient problems of church
discipline runs through the canonical material, and can be traced back
to Chalcedon. All but six of the 27 canons of 451 are repeated in one
form or another in 692:"^'’ these six relate to the secular activities of clerics
(3 and 7), to the ordination of priests without designating them to a
particular church (6), to clerics who take their legal cases to civilian
courts (9), and to clerics or laymen who accuse bishops or clergy without
having their characters investigated (21). Presumably, these issues were
no longer considered relevant in the late seventh century. The sixth is
Canon 26 of Chalcedon which ordered bishops to appoint clerical
administrators (oikonomoi) to manage their property: this had become
standard, so there was no need to repeat it. The concerns behind the
remaining 21 canons issued at Chalcedon were reformulated at Trullo,
sometimes in an oblique fashion, but occasionally directly, for example
in the case of women abducted on the pretext of marriage (Chalcedon
27, Trullo 92). The marriage of monks or nuns, the marriage of lower
clergy with heretical Christians, the activities of vagabond monks, priests
who perform the liturgy in another city without the bishop’s permission,
who try to make their ecclesiastical institutions independent of episcopal
control, or try to take over a bishop’s property after his death, or even
conspire against their bishops, were issues that continued to preoccupy
the ecclesiastical authorities. Basic problems, such as the preservation
of the hierarchy of each diocese and episcopal control of monasteries,
had to be addressed again in 692.

In addition, the Council in Trullo raised a number of interesting new
issues, which seem to be directed against specific developments in the
Church (whether these derived from Armenian, Jewish or Roman tradi¬
tion), and a wide range of non-Christian activity which might mislead
the simple-minded {haplousteroi)^^ In condemning these incorrect
notions, the bishops revealed what was happening in certain regions of
the Christian oikoumene - telling evidence of developments in popular

115-16. Can. 39 is specifically concerned with Bishop John of Cyprus, who took
refuge in Hellespontus when the island was occupied by barbarians (ibid. 117-18).

46 See the table at the end of this article.

47 Herrin (1987), 285-6. For a detailed analysis of what ‘average’ Christians knew of
theology see now Baun (2007).

160

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

belief and practice, as well as serious errors in theology. Their disap¬
proval preserves information which would otherwise have remained
hidden, and is all the more precious for historians of Church history and
canon law.

Here I shall summarize the major features of these new regulations.
Three are directed against the influence of Armenian practices, which
are to be avoided, such as eating eggs and cheese on Saturdays and
Sundays in Lent (Canon 56), restricting the choice of priests to partic¬
ular families (33), or bringing animals to be slaughtered outside churches
on the occasion of feasts (matah) (99)."^® The last two are both associated
with Jewish customs, which are also condemned in Canon 11, where the
practice of Judaizing is spelled out: attending Jewish festivals, using
Jewish doctors, going to the baths with Jews, or socializing with them in
any way."^^ The bishops of 692 distanced themselves from the Roman
custom of strict clerical celibacy, which it contrasted with the eastern
tradition of clemency and compassion concerning the marriage of lower
clergy, even those who had married a second time (Canon 3).^“ Again in
Canon 13 they instructed lower clergy who were married to remain with
their wives; only those who were promoted to episcopal rank were
obliged to separate from them.^^ In Canon 55 they disagreed with the
Roman custom of fasting on Saturdays in Lent.^^ And in Canon 36 they
reasserted the hierarchy of the pentarchy according to the Second and
Fourth Ecumenical Councils, viz. that Constantinople (New Rome) was
‘to enjoy equal privileges to those of the see of the older Rome... coming
second after it, followed by Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem’.Here
the canons of Constantinople (381) and Chalcedon (451) were cited.

These so-called anti-Roman canons reflected differences which had
developed in the course of the previous three centuries. While the claim
that Old and New Rome had equal privileges still rankled with western
theologians, it dated back to the Second Ecumenical Council. Habits of
fasting and clerical marriage had slowly solidified into distinct practices
that divided east and west. Later the type of Eucharistic bread would
become even more important. Clerical celibacy remained a major

48 Nedungatt-Featherstone, 137-8,110-11,179-80; Ohme (2006), 79.

49 Nedungatt-Featherstone, 81-2.

50 Ibid. 69-74. Clerics already married for the second time were to separate from their
wives and do penance, Ohme (2006), 137-44.

51 Nedungatt-Feathersone, 84-7.

52 Ibid. 136-7.

53 Ibid. 114. See Ohme (2006), 22-30,128.

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161

problem even into the early period of the eleventh-century reforms: in
1049 Pope Leo IX presided at a Roman synod which tried to impose
stricter observance by insisting that all clerics from the rank of
subdeacon upward should not be married.®'' This in effect recognized
that many junior clerics were married, as in the east, and that celibacy
had been regularly avoided. Even in the thirteenth century, Byzantine
critics pointed to western bishops who kept concubines or employed
female ‘housekeepers’ for the same purpose.®®

More significant for the eastern bishops in 692 were a series of pagan
practices documented by canons directed against inappropriate activi¬
ties which Christians were ordered to avoid, such as allowing people to
celebrate the New Year with public dancing, cross-dressing, and wearing
ancient theatrical masks, or invoking the name of Dionysus when
pressing the grapes and pouring the wine into jars, or lighting fires at the
new moon and jumping over them.®® Law students are singled out for
their inappropriate celebrations at the completion of their studies by
dressing up in strange costumes and going in rowdy processions to the
Hippodrome, and adopting pagan customs such as predicting the future,
or swearing by the ancient gods.®^ Ancient prohibitions against clerics
and laymen collecting or maintaining prostitutes had to be repeated.®*
The bishops also approved canons designed to improve the moral
standing of the clergy and dedicated monks and nuns, for instance.
Canon 77 which forbids clerics and ascetics, as well as laymen, to bathe
with women in the public baths.®^

In addition, there is much about those simple-minded people who
might be misled by certain practices and must be protected. The activi¬
ties targeted for condemnation include: reading apocryphal martyr
stories in church, uttering prophecies in a feigned state of possession,
consulting those (diviners, seers, magicians) who claim to predict the
future, good luck and bad, by interpreting clouds, genealogies, or using
the hairs of a bear’s back, and the wearing of charms and phylacteries.®"

54 Brundage (1995), 39-40.

55 Herrin (2007), 303-4.

56 Nedungatt-Featherstone, Cann. 62 and 65, pp. 142^, 147-8.

57 Ibid. Can. 71, pp. 152-3; Can. 94, pp. 173^. Cf. Can. 51, pp. 132-3; Can. 61, pp. 140-
2; Can. 62, pp. 142^.

58 Ibid. Can. 86, pp. 166.

59 Nedungatt-Featherstone, Cann. 40-49, pp. 119-31, and Can. 77, pp. 158; see Ohme
(2006), 95-7.

60 Nedungatt-Featherstone, Can. 63, pp. 144; Can. 60, p. 140; Can. 61, pp. 140-2.

162

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Men and women, lay and clergy, are all condemned for celebrating the
birth of Christ with inappropriate cakes baked for the Sunday after the
Nativity,®^ for behaving inappropriately in church, by selling goods
inside churches, or bringing animals into church (except in the case of
encountering very bad weather on a journey), or profaning the sacred
space by living in church with one’s wife.*’^ People making fancy plaits of
their hair that might seduce others were condemned.® The bishops also
decreed that the cross was never to be set in the floor of churches where
it might be trodden on, and forbade anyone from destroying worn-out
copies of the Bible, unless they were utterly ruined by worms or damp¬
ness or something else. In particular, no one was to give such texts to the
perfume dealers, who would presumably scrape off the text and perhaps
reuse the parchment, thus showing dishonour to Holy Scripture.®

Special measures were directed against women who provided or used
substances to obtain an abortion, or even those who talked in church.®
And anyone who accompanied young girls in the ritual to adopt the
monastic life was instructed not to allow them to come to the ceremony
dressed in their finest clothes and jewelry.® Several other canons were
designed to improve popular behaviour in church. No laity were to
receive the Eucharist in a golden or silver bowl rather than in the cupped
hand.® Clergy and laity alike were enjoined not to let three weeks go by
without attending church on Sunday.® No one was to have their children
baptized in private chapels;® and priests were only permitted to cele¬
brate the liturgy in such chapels within houses with the permission of the
local bishop.™

Finally, there are two new and now famous art-historical matters -
Canon 82 against showing Christ in his symbolic form as the Lamb of
God (his human form is to be preferred as a reminder of the Incarna¬
tion, which permits humans the possibility of salvation), and Canon 100
against permitting any type of painting which might arouse wrong feel-

61 Ibid. Can. 79, pp. 159-60.

62 Ibid. Can. 76, pp. 157-8; Can. 88, pp. 168-9; Can. 97, pp. 178-9.

63 Ibid. Can. 96, pp. 177-8.

64 Ibid. Can. 73, p. 155; Can. 68, pp. 150-1.

65 Ibid, Can. 91, p. 171; Can. 70, p. 152; Herrin (1992).

66 Nedungatt-Featherstone, Can. 45, pp. 126-8.

67 Ibid. Can. 101, pp. 181-3.

68 Ibid. Can. 80, pp. 160-1.

69 Ibid. Can. 59, p. 139.

70 Ibid. Can. 31, p. 106.

THE QUINISEXT COUNCIL (692)

163

ings in people2^ Whether this is a reference to images of the ancient gods
or mythological characters, secular portraits of prostitutes, or erotic
paintings, the bishops felt it necessary to spell out the dangers2^

Although there is no record of how these issues were brought to the
attention of the bishops, some must certainly have emanated from
groups concerned about foreign invasions and unfamiliar or inappro¬
priate behaviour for Christians. Some seem to have been generated in
the capital city, rowdy law students for instance (no other law schools
were open), where references to methods of foretelling the future
connected with the Hippodrome imply a Constantinopolitan origin. But
many could apply to any part of the now reduced Byzantine empire -
canons against remarriage before the death of a husband is confirmed,
against the marriage of godparents with their godchildren, or against
men spending the night in convents or women in male monasteries. The
bishops were clearly concerned to reform irregularities and enforce a
more Christian morality.

While Rome initially rejected the canons of 692 because of the three
critical of Roman primacy and other customs, after Pope Constantine’s
710 visit to Byzantium the western church did accept them, although
they were never widely diffused. Ohme suggests that Roman hostility
may in fact have been provoked by the transfer of the diocese of East
Illyricum to Constantinople, which is reflected in the loss of status of its
bishops. Thessalonica, which had held the position of vicar of the see of
Rome in 680/1 and therefore signed the acts immediately after the patri¬
arch of Constantinople, was in 692 placed below the new see of Nea
Justinianopolis, created for the refugee Church of Constantia in
Cyprus.’^ Many of the canons clearly related to eastern problems (there
were few Armenians in the west, and no known additions to the Trisa-
gion hymn). Others were directed against stronger pagan practices than
survived outside the empire. Yet those directed to the protection of the
simple-minded often find a parallel in the acts of western church coun¬
cils, which similarly try to prohibit ancient customs and ways of
predicting the future.^'* The issues that most worried the bishops of 692

71 Ibid. Can. 82, pp. 162-4; Can. 100, pp. 180-1.

72 Ohme (2006), 63; Brubaker (1998), (2006); Herrin (2007), 99-100,103.

73 Ohme (2006), 13-16, and 27-8, which emphasizes that this new ranking order of the
bishops from East Illyricum may be the first sign of the transfer, normally attributed
to Emperor Leo III in the early eighth century.

74 See for instance Munier (1963); Brundage (1995), 22-6.

164

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

were shared with most Christian authorities in the west.

So far from constituting a decisive breaking-point between east and
west, the Council in Trullo confirmed most of the canons which were
shared in both halves of Christendom. It added concerns which the west
could ignore as inapplicable, and emphasized many which were all too
familiar in regions under papal control.^^ Nonetheless, it remained a
singularly Greek council, and when western councils passed legislation
against similar activities they did not cite the eastern equivalents. The
so-called ‘anti-Roman’ canons have been re-evaluated and can now be
interpreted in the light of traditional eastern claims for the parity of Old
and New Rome, with the primacy of honour reserved to the former. This
more ecumenical view is probably closer to the intentions of Patriarch
Paul III and Justinian II, who seem to have supported Rome’s control
over the west against separatist claims made by Ravenna in the late
seventh century.

Trullo also continued the tradition of Chalcedon in attempting to
legislate for the entire world of Christendom, however divided it was by
linguistic and other factors. At this rather critical point in east/west rela¬
tions, it was important to restate Christian unity against the
depredations of the new monotheistic revelation of Islam as well as the
continuing appeal of Judaism. As Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem
had all been overrun, Rome and Constantinople were the sole surviving
patriarchal sees and had to take greater responsibility for Christians now
living under Islamic rule. Their co-operation was confirmed at the
Second Council of Nicaea (787) after the schism caused by Byzantine
iconoclasm and again in 869/70 at the Fourth Council of Constantinople.
In this way, Trullo played a significant role in sustaining Christian unity
and legislation that applied to all believers everywhere.’*’

75 Among the many direct parallels between Trullan canons and those of seventh-
century Merovingian church councils, see the issues of episcopal control over chapels
in private villas, inappropriate singing in church, and wandering monks, Gaudemet-
Basdevant (1989), Chalon Can. 14, p. 556; Chalon Can. 19, p. 568; Losne Can. 19, p.
582, frequently repeated.

76 I thank Richard Price and Mary Whitby for their assistance in correcting and
improving the text.

THE QUINISEXT COUNCIL (692)

165

APPENDIX: THE CANONS OF CHALCEDON (451)
COMPARED TO THOSE OF TRULLO (692)

Chalcedon 1: one sentence confirmation of earlier canons.

Trullo 1: long definition of faith, confirming earlier councils.

2: against simony. Cp. Trullo 22 and 23.

3: against clerics who lease estates for sordid gain and engage in secular busi¬
ness, taking on management of estates.

4: against monks (vagantes) who travel around, disrupting churches and try to
set up their own monasteries, which must be subject to the bishop; no slave to
enter a monastery against the wish of his master. Cp. Trullo 42.

5: against monks who move from city to city. Cp. Trullo 17.

6: against ordaining any cleric without specifying a particular church.

7: against clerics/monks who take on state service or a secular dignity.

8: against clergy of almshouses, monasteries and martyria who try to become
independent of the bishop’s control. Cp. Trullo 31.

9: against clergy who take cases to civil courts.

10: against clergy who try to enrol in churches of two cities for empty honour.
Cp. Trullo 17.

11: against poor and those in need of assistance who try to travel with systatic
letters of recommendation, which are only for honourable people. Ordinary
letters or ecclesiastical certificates of peace are enough. Cp. Trullo 17.

12: against dividing ecclesiastical provinces into two, thus creating two metro¬
politan sees in each province (this did not affect grants of honorary
metropolitan status). Cp. Trullo 36, 39.

13: against clerics performing the liturgy in another city unless they have systatic
letters from their own bishop. Cp. Trullo 17, 20.

14: against lower clergy, who are allowed to marry, marrying heretics, and what
is to be observed in the baptism of their children. Cp. Trullo 72.

166

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

15: against women being ordained deaconess before the age of 40. Cp. Trullo
14, 40.

16: against dedicated virgins and monks who marry. Cp. Trullo 44.

17: ecclesiastical dioceses to follow civilian regulations, and bishops to possess
rural parishes unless disputes arise within 30 years. Cp. Trullo 38, 25.

18: against clerics or monks who conspire against bishops. Cp. Trullo 34.

19: metropolitans to call assemblies of bishops twice a year to settle any matters.
Cp. Trullo 8.

20: against clerics trying to get appointed to churches in other cities, unless they
have been driven out of their homelands. Cp. Trullo 17, 37 with references to
‘barbarian incursions’.

21: against clerics or laymen who accuse bishops or clergy without having their
characters investigated.

22: against clerics who on the death of a bishop try to seize his property. Cp.
Trullo 35.

23: against clerics or monks who come to Constantinople with no commission
from the bishop. Cp. Trullo 17.

24: monasteries once consecrated must remain in perpetuity together with their
property. Cp. Trullo 49.

25: against metropolitans who delay the consecration of bishops longer than
three months. Cp. Trullo 19.

26: bishops must appoint administrators (oikonomoi) from the clergy to manage
their property.

27: against any who abduct women on the pretext of marriage, and those who
assist them. Cp. Trullo 92.

28: giving equal status to the sees of Old Rome and New Rome while reserving
the primacy of honour to the see of St Peter. Cp. Trullo 36.

THE QUINISEXT COUNCIL (692)
BIBLIOGRAPHY

167

Alberigo, Giuseppe, ed. (2006), Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Generaliumque
decreta, vol. 1, The Oecumenical Councils from Nicaea I to Nicaea II (325-
787) (Turnhout).

Baun, Jane (2007), Tales from Another Byzantium: Celestial Journey and Local
Community in the Medieval Greek Apocrypha (Cambridge).

Beck, Hans-Georg (1959), Kirche und theologische Literatiir im byzantinischen
Reich (Munich).

Brubaker, Leslie (1998), ‘Icons before Iconoclasm?’, Settimane di Studio
(Spoleto), 45:1215-54.

-(2006), ‘In the beginning was the Word. Art and Orthodoxy at the Council

of Trullo (692) and Nicaea II (787)’, in Andrew Louth and Augustine
Casiday, eds, Byzantine Orthodoxies (Aldershot), 95-101.

Brundage, J.A. (1995), Medieval Canon Law (London).

De Clercq, Carlo, ed. (1963), Concilia Galliae 506-695, CCSL 148A (Turn¬
hout). With French trans. in Gaudemet-Basdevant (1989).

Di Berardino, Angelo, ed. (1992), Encyclopedia of the Early Church
(Cambridge).

Dvornik, Francis (1958), The Idea of Apostolicity in Byzantium and the Legend
of the Apostle Andrew, Dumbarton Oaks Studies 4 (Cambridge MA).

Gallagher, Clarence (2002), Church Law and Church Order in Rome and
Byzantium (Aldershot).

Gaudemet, Jean (1985), Les sources du droit de TEglise en Occident du He au
Vile siecle (Paris).

Gaudemet, Jean and Basdevant, Brigitte (1989), Les canons des candles
merovingiens (VIe-VIIe siecles), SC 353-4 (Paris).

Grumel, Venance, ed. (1932), Les regestes des actes des patriarches de
Constantinople, vol. 1 (Kadikoy/Istanbul).

Herrin, Judith Herrin (1987), The Eormation of Christendom (Princeton).

-(1992), “‘Femina byzantina”: the Council in Trullo on Women’, in Homo

Byzantinus. Papers in Honor of Alexander Kazhdan, ed. Anthony Cutler and
Simon Franklin, DOP 46 (1992), 97-105.

-(2007), Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire (London).

Humfress, Caroline (2004), ‘Law and Legal Practice in the Age of Justinian’, in
Michael Maas, ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian
(Cambridge), 161-80.

Joannou, Perikles-Pierre (1960), Discipline generale de Teglise antique, vol I/l:
Les canons des candles ecumeniques (Rome).

L’Huillier, Peter (1996), The Church of the Ancient Councils: the disciplinary
work of the first four oecumenical councils (Crestwood, NY).

Macrides, Ruth (1990), ‘Nomos and Kanon on paper and in court’, in Rosemary
Morris, ed.. Church and People in Byzantium (Birmingham), 61-85.

168

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Mansi, J.-D., ed. (1901), Sacrorum Concilioriim Nova et Amplissima Collectio,
vol. XI (Florence 1765; Paris and Leipzig 1901).

Munier, Charles, ed. (1963), Concilia Galliae 314-506, CCSL 148 (Turnhout),
with French trans. by Jean Gaudemet, SC 241 (1977).

Nedungatt, Georges and Agrestini, Silvano (2006), ‘Concilium Trullanum’, in
Alberigo (2006), 203-93.

Nedungatt, George and Featherstone, Jeffrey, eds. (1995), The Council in
Trullo Revisited, Kanonika 6.

Ohme, Heinz (1990), Das Concilium Quinisextum und seine Bischofslist.
Studien zum Konstantinopoler Konzil von 692 (Berlin-New York).

-(1992), ‘The Causes of the Conflict about the Quinisext Council: New

Perspectives on a Disputed Council’, in Patsavos (1992), 17-43.

- (1995), ‘Die sogennanten “antiromischen Kanones” des Concilium

Quinisextum (692) - Vereinheitlichung als Gefahr fiir die Einheit der
Kirche’, in Nedungatt-Featherstone (1995), 307-21.

- (1998), Kanon Ekklesiastikos. Die Bedeutung des altkirchlichen

Kanonbegriffs (Berlin/New York).

-(2006), Concilium Quinisextum. Das Konzil Quinisextum, Greek text with

German translation, Fontes Christiani 82 (Turnhout).

Patsavos, L.J., ed. (1992), Greek Orthodox Theological Review 40, nos. 1-2 (an
entire issue dedicated to the Council in Trullo).

Peri, Vittorio (1995), ‘Le Chiese neH’lmpero e le Chiese “tra i barbari”. La terri-
torialita ecclesiale nella riforma canonica trullana’, in
Nedungatt-Featherstone (1995), 198-213.

Price, R.M. and Gaddis, Michael (2005), The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon,
3 vols, TTH 45 (Liverpool).

Rhalles, G.A. and Potles M., eds. (1852) Syntagma ton theion kai hieron
kanonon, vol. 2 (Athens).

Riedinger, Rudolf, ed. (1992), Concilium Universale Constantinopolitanum
Tertium. Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, Series Secunda, vol. 2 (Berlin).

Tanner, Norman, ed. (1990), Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (Greek and
Latin texts with English translation) (London/Washington DC).

Troianos, S.N. (1992), He Penthekte Oikoumenike Synodos kai to nomothetikon
tes ergon (Athens).

Turner, C.H. (1928/9 and 1929/30), ‘Chapters in the History of Latin MSS of
Canons’, V-Vl, ‘The Version called Prisca’,/r5'30 (1928-9), 337-46; ibid. 31
(1929-30), 9-20.

ACCLAMATIONS AT THE COUNCIL
OF CHALCEDON

Charlotte Roueche

One of the more startling aspects of the conciliar acts is the regular
recording of acclamations. To a modern reader, they appear intrusive
and inappropriate, not least because in modern writing-based societies,
cheering and shouting by groups has become increasingly marginalized:
it is associated with disorder and disruption, even if it has an established
role in certain situations, such as sporting events. This sense of what is
appropriate is also influenced by a modern belief in the value of indi¬
vidual commitment. To a modern reader, the statements attributed to
the individual bishops seem more significant than the ‘shouts’ of the
group as a whole. But in a pre-individual society, such shouts have a very
different significance.

Acclamations can be found throughout the ancient Near East, and in
both the Jewish and the Graeco-Roman tradition. Their primary func¬
tion must be one of communication in a non-literate form. In both
cultures they seem to be closely associated with religious practice. When
the people of Ephesus were being encouraged to oppose the Christian
apostle Paul, the crowd in the theatre was encouraged to shout the cult
acclamation ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians’. This will have been a
familiar chant from their normal religious ceremonies; it is therefore
understandable that they proceeded to repeat the acclamation over a
period of two hours. ^ The fullest account of this aspect of acclamations
is still the study, written in 1920 by Peterson, of the acclamation ‘One
God’, a pre-Christian acclamation which was enthusiastically adopted
by Christian assemblies, and can be found in the conciliar acts, e.g. at
Chalcedon, eti; Oeog 6 xohxo JXOLTioag (‘It is the one God who has done
this’, Chalcedon VI. 13).^

1 Act. Ap. 19:23-41, with Robert (1982), 55-7.

2 Peterson (1920). See also Edessa, First report, meeting of 12 April (Doran 2006,139),
meeting of 14 April (ibid. 141), Second Report (ibid. 148), and the acts of 536, AGO
3, p. 85.18-19, etc.

170

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

In all these situations the role of acclamations is seen as positive and
reinforcing: the verbs used in the ancient texts, translated as shouting or
crying out, have an inappropriately negative connotation in English. But
the liturgies of the churches have retained that role for acclamations,
although a modern description would perhaps use the term ‘chant’; even
the simplest of rituals has retained the function of ‘amen’. This reflects
the most essential function of acclamation, as an expression of assent. It
also expresses that assent as shared and unanimous. In a recent study,
Angelos Chaniotis has pointed to the importance of such ritual vocalism
in confirming the bonds both among participants and between them and
the divinity in Greek religious rituals.^

But acclamations also had a long history of secular usage, firstly as an
indication of assent. Documents record decrees as being approved by
acclamation - so the councillors ‘shouted in support’, epeboesan, at Tyre
in 174 A.D.'* or epephonesan at Oxyrhynchus in 192.^ The formality of
this process is confirmed by an inscription from Mylasa, where the accla¬
mations, in Greek, are preceded by the Latin formula ‘succlamatum
est’.'’ The simplest acclamation was simply one of assent - in Latin placet,
this is found, for example, in the Acts of the Council of Sardica in 343,
where assent is invited by the phrase: Si hoc omnibus placet, followed by
Synodus respondit: Placet? But another way to express such assent was
to pick up a proposed phrase - for example a^LOV, ‘worthy’, as in the
later church liturgies. This kind of acclamation underpinned the
awarding of honorific epithets and titles, such as philopatris, patriotic, or
ktistes, founder, in the east; * John Chrysostom describes the acclama¬
tion of a benefactor in the theatre, ajiavxeg icnbepova icaXobvxeq.^
Similarly in Rome Livy can conceive of Camillus being acclaimed as
Romulus ac pater patriae, conditorque (5.49.7). Under the empire,
emperors came to be acclaimed regularly by the Senate - so Pliny, Pane-
gyricus 75.2.

From this process it was a short step to election to offices of real
power. Already in republican Rome the title of Imperator was granted

3 Chaniotis (2006), 226-30.

4 OGIS 595.

5 Hunt and Edgar (1934), 241.

6 IMylasa (Bliimel, 1987-8) 605.

7 Mansi Ill, 23B, 23D, 24C, cf. 23 A.

8 On this procedure see Robert (1965), 215-16.

9 De inan. glor. 4, with Robert (1960), 569-73.

ACCLAMATIONS AT CHALCEDON

171

by conclamatio}° The kings of ancient Israel were acclaimed,and
mediaeval kings were to adopt the practiced^ By the third century accla¬
mations formed part of the process of appointing a pope (Eusebius, Hist.
Eccl. 6.29), and they were to become standard in the appointment of
bishops during the fourth century (Augustine, ep. 213). The origins of
acclamations in religious ritual gave them extra significance, and they
were seen as reinforcing authority, not least by being unanimous: such
unanimity could be interpreted as a mark of divine inspiration, both
within religious rituals (as emphasized by Chaniotis), and also beyond
them. Thus Apuleius can write of unanimous acclamations as seen to be
inspired: consensum publicae vocis pro divino auspicium interpretatur
(Apuleius, Apol. 73). Cassius Dio can use similar language of acclama¬
tions in the Circus Maximus in 192: ohio) pev eic XLVog Betag ejtLjivoiag
eveBoDOtaoav (Dio 75.4.5). This made them all the more valuable in
conferring office: Eusebius writes of the election of Pope Fabian, ‘The
whole people, as if moved by one divine spirit, with all enthusiasm and
one voice cried out in agreement, “Worthy”.

Moreover, the process was not one of simple indications of assent, or
the monosyllabic awarding of titles. The acclaiming crowd could pick up
on a preceding phrase; they could also produce an extended phrase -
such as ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians’. Already in the first century
AD crowds at Rome could respond to the news of Germanicus’ restored
health with the acclamation Salva Roma, salva patria, salvus est German¬
icus (Suetonius, Gaius 6.1). This is also illustrated in the record of the
meeting in 178 of a religious confraternity devoted to Dionysus, at
Athens. Here statutes are proposed and validated by a show of hands,
but this is followed by acclamations: ‘Long live our priest Herodes! Now
we are happy! Now our Bacchus Club is the first among all (Bacchic)
clubs! The vice-priest has done a find job! Let the stele be made’ (IG^
1368, trans. Chaniotis). In 438 the Senate greeted the issuing of the
Theodosian Code not with simple indications of assent, but with a series
of complex phrases; the documents record how many times each accla¬
mation was repeated (Cod. Theod., Gesta senatus). Similarly, the
account of the election of Augustine’s successor as bishop of Hippo

10 Caesar, Bell. Civ. II. 26.1; Tacitus, Annales III. 74.6.

11 Saul, 1 Samuel 10.24; Solomon, 1 Kings 1.39.

12 The fundamental study is still Kantorowicz (1946).

13 etp’ & Tov jtavia >va6v, cooitep ucp’ evog jtvEuixaxoi; Oeiou KivtiOevia, jtpoOutiig
Jtaori ical [xig tf uxfi a|iov EJCi|3ofioaL, Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. VI. 29.3.

172

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

enumerates the repetitions of acclamations: ‘The people shouted, “To
God be thanks! To Christ be praise” (this was repeated twenty-three
times). “O Christ, hear us; may Augustine live long!” (repeated sixteen
times). “We will have thee as our father, thee as our bishop” (repeated
eight times)’ (Aug., ep. 213).

Their role in religious practice, together with their usefulness to
the rulers, therefore conferred authority on acclamations; and their
widespread use meant that they could express not just consent but also
complex expressions of approval - and of opinion. The best known
example of the use of acclamations by an assembly to obtain a demand
is probably to obtain a punishment - thus the shouts of the crowd in the
Gospel accounts of the trials of Jesus, or the use of the phrase Chris¬
tianas ad leones, ‘Christians to the lions’.These accounts, of course,
reinforce a modern sense of acclamations as disruptive and malign; but
it is clear that they were used in a variety of settings. The acts of the
church councils provide the richest source of accounts of acclamations
in their entirety. The Acts of Chalcedon are important in this regard; but
one of the fullest collections has also just been translated into English.
This is the record, only found in Syriac, of gatherings in Edessa, in 449,
which was read into the minutes of the Robber Council of Ephesus, later
that year, including extensive listings of the acclamations used.^^ The
formulaic shape - and rhythm - of the phrases could be used to struc¬
ture a wide range of requests.

This can be illustrated by examining a set of acclamations inscribed in
the late third century in a rural settlement in the territory of Termessus
in Lycia; these honoured a certain Hermaius, a local chieftain and
‘brigand-chaser’, asking for him to be kept in office in the territory:^*’

Let him who (acts) on behalf of the city reside/remain!

Let him who (acts) on behalf of peace remain!

This is of benefit to the city.

A decree for the brigand-chaser!

Let the well-born brigand-chaser guard the city!

Let him who has killed brigands guard the city!

Let him who has often acted as ekdikos for the city guard the city!

14 See Potter (1996).

15 The Syriac text with a German translation is in Flemming (1917), now translated into
English by Doran (2006), 133-88.

16 Ballance and Roueche (2001), 87-112.

ACCLAMATIONS AT CHALCEDON

173

Let him who has acted as ekdikos for the city remain!

Let him who has ... sent annona remain!

Let him who (acts) on behalf of peace remain!

Let Hermaius remain, let the son of Askoureus remain!

Hermaius son of Askoureus as brigand-chaser as long as we live!

Let him remain so that we can live!

Let him remain according to the order of the governor!

Let him who has often saved the city remain!

Let him who has sent supplies to the city remain!

This particular text lacks the opening phrases. A more complete,
although less complex, set of acclamations was inscribed in the early
sixth century at Aphrodisias in Caria, each on one of the twenty columns
of a stoa which had been restored by a local benefactor, Albinus3^

i: God is one, for the whole world!

ii: Many years for the emperors!

hi: Many years for the eparchs!

iv: Many years for the Senate!

v: Many years for the metropolis!

vi: PERDE^* Albinus - up with the builder of the stoa!

vii: Lord, lover of your country, remain for us!

viii: Your buildings are an eternal reminder, Albinus, you who love to build.

ix: [... ] Albinus clarissimus.

x: PERDE Albinus, behold what you have given!

xi: The whole city says this: Your enemies to the river! May the great God
provide this!’

[xii is lost.]

xiii: Up with Albinus clarissimus, to the Senate!
xiv: [?...] envy does not vanquish fortune,
xv: Up with Albinus, the builder of this work also!

xvi: You have disregarded wealth and obtained glory, Albinus clarissimus.
xvii: Albinus clarissimus, like your ancestors a lover of your country, may you
receive plenty.

xviii: Providing [?a building] for the city, he is acclaimed [?in it also],
xix: With your buildings you have made the city brilliant, Albinus, lover of
your country.

17 Roueche (2004), no. 83.

18 The word or name PERDE is clear, but its meaning is very uncertain.

174

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

xx: The whole city, having acclaimed (you) with one voice, says: ‘He who

forgets you, Albinus clarissimus, does not know God.

There are several patterns that can be detected in the two sets of
inscribed acclamations and in the conciliar acclamations. Firstly, it is
common to start with statements of orthodoxy and loyalty: so Aphro-
disias, nos. i-v, and at Edessa.^^ Only after such expressions of loyalty
does the series of requests begin. There are stock phrases. Some are very
widespread - so ‘many years’ (Albinus i-v; Chacedon VI, 15) ‘so-and-so
is victorious’ (the term which gave its name to the great Nika riot of 532
in Constantinople); ‘up with so and so’, and some a little less common,
but still widespread: ‘may he reside/remain’ is used of Hermaius and
Albinus. Secondly, there is a basic structure of using repetitions and vari¬
ation, such as the repetition of ‘Albinus clarissimus’ in a variety of
phrases, or, at Edessa, ‘Let our lords learn this! Let the prefects learn
this! Let the master learn this! Let the Senate learn this!’^° Another
method to make the acclamations flow more easily is to change one half
of a sentence, and then the other: so A -i- B, A -i- C, A -i- D, then D -i- E,
D -I- F: this can be seen in the acclamations for Hermaius. There is also
the occasional recurrence of an earlier line, almost like a refrain: ‘Up
with Albinus’.

Requests are expressed in standard ways. One is the dative of direc¬
tion or purpose: ‘A decree for the brigand-chaser! Your enemies to the
river! Albinus to the senate!’ At Edessa, ‘The hater of Christ to the wild
beasts! The party of Hiba to the stadium! An orthodox bishop for the
metropolis!’^^ Another recurrent pattern is the phrasing, ‘He who does
so and so, let him ...’ : of Hermaius, ‘Let him who has often saved the
city reside!’; at Edessa, ‘Whoever loves Hiba is a Satan’;^^ at Aphro-
disias, ‘He who forgets you, Albinus clarissimus, does not know God!’

All this demonstrates a widespread range of formulae and structures
which made it possible to concert and organize acclamations, to great
effect. To be effective, however, there were two further requirements.
Firstly, they needed to be recorded verbatim. One aspect of this is the
increased use of improved systems of stenography during the third and

19 First report at the meetings on 12 April (Doran 2006,139), 14 April (ibid. 141); second
report (ibid. 148).

20 First report, 14 April (Doran 2006,142).

21 First report, 14 April (Doran 2006,142-3).

22 Doran (2006), 176.

ACCLAMATIONS AT CHALCEDON

175

fourth centuries, to which the acts of the councils bear striking witness.
The records therefore existed.

Even more importantly, they needed to be accepted as having some
kind of status, as a real expression of opinion. In 331 Constantine issued
a law arranging for acclamations of governors, probably by provincial
assembles, to be reported to the central government by the praetorian
prefects and vicars: praefectis praetorio et comitibus, qui per provincias
constituti sunt, provincialium nostrorum voces ad nostrum scientiam
referentibusP But an increasing tendency to record acclamations, and to
inscribe them, can already be detected in the third century. The accla¬
mations for Hermaius included a request which must have been
forwarded to a senior authority. It seems very likely that, as so often with
imperial legislation, Constantine was legislating to confirm a practice
which was already developing, of using acclamations to support peti¬
tions.

It is therefore unsurprising that, from the fourth century onwards, we
find acclamations inscribed and recorded in detail. I have argued else¬
where that in the secular world this reflects, and reinforces, a process by
which powerful individuals could bypass the normal civic structures in
their relationship with the populace and with the imperial authorities.^"^
The authority of such procedures must come from the fact that they
appear to confirm unanimity, which they therefore emphasize: so at
Aphrodisias ‘the whole city’ acclaims (xi, xx); exactly the same phrase is
used at Edessa.^^ In the church councils, the acclamations are required
to confirm the full involvement of all those present in the unanimous
decisions which were required; and that therefore offers an opportunity
for those wishing to express opinions. One request of the Egyptian
bishops at Chalcedon is, precisely, that their acclamations should be
forwarded to the emperor: xd^ cpwvdg tool (3aoLX,eL, ‘our words to the
emperor’ (Chalcedon I. 173).

The acts therefore show how acclamations had a significant role to
play in the authentication of authority, ecclesiastical as well as secular.
Augustine describes the situation when he talks of the election of his
successor, Eraclius, in 426: ‘The notaries of the church are, as you
observe, recording what I say, and recording what you say; both my
address and your acclamations are not allowed to fall to the ground. To

23 Cod. Theod. 1.16.6, whence Cod. Just. I. 40.3.

24 Roueche (2007), 183-92.

25 Second report (Doran 2006,149).

176

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

speak more plainly, we are making up an ecclesiastical record of this
day’s proceedings; for I wish them to be in this way confirmed so far as
pertains to men’7® At both Hippo and Chalcedon, the gesta of the
meeting are composed of both the sermon or the addresses and the
acclamations: both are essential to the conclusions. This helps to explain
the careful recording of the acclamations at a variety of assemblies; just
as the acclamations from the meetings at Edessa were read into the
minutes at Ephesus in 449, similar collections of acclamations, from
meetings held in 518 at Constantinople, at Apamea, and at Tyre, were
preserved and read into the minutes of the council of 536.^^ These cases
illustrate very clearly how the respect for acclamations, and the need for
the authority which they conveyed, could empower assemblies who
wished to make their views felt. The conciliar acts, taken with the
epigraphic record, provide a good understanding of the processes of a
very important institution in ancient life, which also had a great influ¬
ence on the development of the liturgies of the churches.^*

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ballance, M. and Roueche, C. (2001), ‘Three inscriptions from Ovacik’, in
Harrison, R.M., Mountain and Plain: From the Lycian Coast to the Phrygian
Plateau in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine Period (Ann Arbor), 87-112.

Bliimel, Wolfgang, ed. (1987-8), Die Inschriften von Mylasa (Bonn).

Chaniotis, Angelos (2006), ‘Rituals between Norms and Emotions: Rituals as
Shared Experience and Memory’, in E. Stavrianopoulou, ed., Ritual and
Communication in the Graeco-Roman World, Kernos Supplement 16
(Liege), 211-38.

Doran, Robert (2006), Stewards of the Poor: The Man of God, Rabbula, and
Hiba in Fifth-Century Edessa (Kalamazoo).

Flemming, Johannes (1917), Akten der ephesinischen Synode vom Jahre 449.
Abh. der kbn. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen, Philologisch-
historische Klasse, NF 15.1.

Hunt, A.S. and Edgar, C.C. (1934), Select Papyri 11 (Harvard).

26 Augustine, ep. 213, ‘A notariis ecclesiasticis excipiuntur quae dicitis; et meus sermo
et vestrae acclamationes in terram non cadunt. Apertius ut dicam, ecclesiastica nunc
gesta conficimus: sic enim hoc esse, quantum ad homines attinet, confirmatum volo.’

27 ACO 3, pp. 71-7, 85-7,102-3.

28 For further studies on acclamations see Roueche (1984, 1999), and, most recently,
Wiemer (2004).

ACCLAMATIONS AT CHALCEDON

177

Kantorowicz, Ernst (1946) Laudes Regiae (Berkeley).

Mansi, J.-D., ed., Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, ed. J.-D.
Mansi, 31 vols (Florence and Venice, 1759-98; Paris and Leipzig, 1901-6).

Peterson, Erik (1920), Heis theos : epigraphische, formgeschichtliche und
religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Gottingen).

Potter, D. (1996), ‘Performance, power and justice in the High Empire’, in W.
J. Slater, ed., Roman Theater and Society. E. Togo Salmon Papers (Ann
Arbor), vol. 1,129-60.

Robert, Louis, (1960) Hellenica XI-XII (Paris).

-(1965) Hellenica XIII (Paris).

-(1982), ‘La date de I’epigrammatiste Rufinus. Philologie et realite’, CRAI

(1982) 50-63, 55-7, = Opera Minora Selecta V (1989), 129, 777-90, 782-4.

Roueche, Charlotte (1984), ‘Acclamations in the later Roman empire: new
evidence from Aphrodisias’, Journal of Roman Studies 74,181-99.

-(1999), ‘Looking for Late Antique ceremonial: Ephesos and Aphrodisias’,

in H. Friesinger and F. Krinzinger, eds. (1999), 100 Jahre Osterreichische
Forschungen in Ephesos. Akten des Symposions Wien 1995 (Archaologische
Forschungen 1, DenkschrWien 260) (Vienna), 161-8.

-(2004) Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity, Online second edition available at

http://insaph.kcl.ac.uk/ala2004

-(2007), ‘From Aphrodisias to Stauropolis’, in R. Salway and J. Drinkwater

(eds.) Wolf Liebeschuetz Reflected (London), 183-192.

Wiemer, H.-U. (2004), ‘Akklamationen im spatromischen Reich. Zur
Typologie und Funktion eines Kommunikationsrituals’, Archiv fiir
Kulturgeschichte 86: 27-73.

AN UNHOLY CREW? BISHOPS BEHAVING BADLY
AT CHURCH COUNCILS

Michael Whitby

The acts of church councils offer us an exceptionally rich source of infor¬
mation about the utterances and behaviour of large numbers of bishops
while engaged in one of their most important duties, namely the collec¬
tive establishment of orthodoxy and the identification of heresy. They
provide examples of Christian leaders in action, not only of individual
bishops who in their own cities would be regarded as leaders but in the
context of an ecumenical council were overshadowed by their metro¬
politans or the patriarchs or other key figures prominent in a particular
debate, but also of a small number of international leaders. Although
the absolute accuracy of council records is open to challenge, with the
impossibility of verbatim precision, especially during heated moments,
being acknowledged by those responsible for attempting to produce the
records,^ the general impression of the tone and conduct of debates is
beyond challenge, while the subscriptions by individual bishops to
various decisions also offer insights into how the participants wished
their involvement to be registered and remembered.

Episcopal behaviour has recently been the subject of two illuminating
studies. The first, by Claudia Rapp,^ identifies different strands of epis¬
copal authority - spiritual, ascetic and pragmatic -, probes how these
were combined to legitimate that authority, and considers how bishops
as men of power operated within the evolving economic and social struc¬
tures of their cities. Theological debates are an area which Rapp
specifically chose not to treat (p. 22), and so council acts do not
contribute to the evidence through which she investigates ‘the realities

1 As the senior notary, Aetius, admitted when challenged about the accuracy of his
record of Flavian’s proceedings against Eutyches in 448: Acts of Chalcedon 1. 767,
792, ACO 2.1, pp. 170-1,173; see also Ste. Croix (2006) 307-8. Some acts appear to
be an artful composition reflecting how a council wished to present itself rather than
a straightforward factual record; see Thomas Graumann’s discussion of the acts of
the first session of Ephesus 1, pp. 27^3 above.

2 Rapp (2005).

AN UNHOLY CREW?

179

of episcopal office’ (p. 20). Rather, Rapp’s picture of ‘holy bishops’ is
constructed from patristic works on the qualities and duties of bishops
and from hagiographies of those most renowned for their holiness.
Although it is useful to identify what types of behaviour were being held
up as models, there are obvious dangers in this approach that the ideal
or exceptional will supplant the average,^ and that the silent majority of
bishops, about whom a name is often the limit to our knowledge, will be
overshadowed by the holy elite or their idealized representation. The
second study, by Michael Gaddis, devotes one chapter to bishops in a
broader-ranging study of justified religious violence, with particular
attention to the operation of the councils of Second Ephesus and Chal-
cedon.'* Not surprisingly, the picture of episcopal behaviour that
emerges appears very different from Rapp’s, but there are certain simi¬
larities in that Gaddis also focuses on a limited selection of bishops,
those at the centre of proceedings (and much of the discussion concerns
the trio of Cyril, Nestorius and Dioscorus), and the misbehaviour of a
Dioscorus can be dismissed as characteristic of a false rather than an
ideal bishop. In the light of these contributions, it is worth reflecting on
the evidence that the council acts provide for a broader range of epis¬
copal conduct.

A first point to consider is the general tone of conciliar proceedings.
Reading the acts of First and Second Ephesus, or of Second Constan¬
tinople, makes clear that very serious issues were under discussion and
that on occasions feelings ran high, but the overall impression is that
debates were conducted in a reasonably orderly fashion. Acclamations
are reported as representing the views of the whole council, e.g.
‘Dioscorus and Cyril have one faith. This is what the entire council
believes,’ or are presented as statements rather than chants, e.g. ‘The
holy council said: “And the ecumenical council believes likewise”.’^
Even the climax of the drama at Second Ephesus, when Dioscorus
pronounced judgement against Flavian of Constantinople and Eusebius
of Dorylaeum, thereby prompting Flavian to appeal to Pope Leo
through his representative, appears to proceed smoothly: Hilary, the
Roman deacon who was representing Leo, responded ‘“Contradicituf\
which means, “An objection is lodged’”, but the council then went on to

3 As Rapp notes on occasion, e.g. 294-5.

4 Gaddis (2005), ch. 8.

5 Acts 1.226,228, ACO 2.1, p. 101, both from Second Ephesus as read out at Chalcedon.

Translations are from Price and Gaddis (2005).

180

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

record the views of all the bishops in favour of the judgement.*’ From the
subsequent testimony of participants when these proceedings were read
out at Chalcedon, it emerges that the deliberations at Second Ephesus
had been joined at this stage by armed soldiers and a large gang of monks
led by the zealot Barsauma, with Dioscorus standing on his footstool to
summon these reinforcements.^ Hilary later alleged that Dioscorus had
attempted to prevent him from leaving the session, and an inscription in
the baptistery at St John Lateran in honour of his ‘liberator’, John the
Evangelist, is plausibly connected with his escape from being forced to
participate in Flavian’s condemnation.® None of this drama is present in
the original written record, and uproar is most easily identified only
through subsequent references.®

By contrast, proceedings at Chalcedon, especially when Dioscorus or
Theodore! is the subject of discussion, appear exceptionally noisy, even
chaotic. It seems that a certain level of noise was required to demon¬
strate the will of the whole council: thus at the second session, in
response to demands that excluded bishops should be reinstated, the
Constantinopolitan clergy shouted, ‘Only a few are clamouring. The
council is not speaking,’ which sparked opposed chants between the
eastern (= Syrian) and Illyrican bishops demanding the exile or restora¬
tion of Dioscorus.It was very rare for the presiding officials to
intervene to check the noise, the most decisive case being near the start
of the first session when the decision of the magister militum Anatolius
and his colleagues to admit Theodore! of Cyrrhus as accuser of
Dioscorus generated fierce denunciations from the Egyptian contingent
and their supporters from Illyricum and Palestine, which were opposed
by chants against Dioscorus by the eastern bishops. Theodoret’s
enemies attempted to appeal to the orthodoxy of Emperor Marcian and
Empress Pulcheria, but the presidents firmly stamped their authority on
proceedings: ‘These vulgar outbursts are not becoming to bishops, nor
useful to either party. Allow everything to be read. ... Allow, rather, the
hearing to be conducted according to God, and permit everything to be
read in order’.

6 Acts I. 964-1066, ACO 2.1, pp. 191-4 and 2.3, pp. 238-52.

7 Acts 1. 851, 858, ACO 2.1, pp. 179-80.

8 Inscriptiones Latinae Chrislianae Veteres 980 (I, p. 183).

9 E.g. Acts I. 803, 808, ACO 2.1, pp. 174-5, from the Acts of Second Ephesus, referring

back to Flavian’s investigation of Eutyches.

10 Acts 11. 35^4, ACO 2.1, pp. 279-80.

11 Acts 1. 35-46, ACO 2.1, p. 70.

AN UNHOLY CREW?

181

The distinct nature of the record of Chalcedon requires explanation.
Gaddis sees the preservation of dissonant voices as contributing to the
establishment of the absolute accuracy of the acts, which would serve to
validate the council as a restoration of law and order after the disrup¬
tions of Second Ephesus; on this view Chalcedon represents the triumph
of the establishment, with the unprecedented acceptance by the Church
of secular control of proceedings being the price which bishops were
prepared to pay to be released from Dioscorus’ violent tyranny at
Second Ephesus.This, however, fails to recognize the strength of
Marcian and Pulcheria’s determination to control the council, even
against the wishes of many, perhaps the majority of bishops. Ste. Croix’s
analysis of the links between the presiding officials, in particular the
senior official Anatolius, and Theodore! of Cyrrhus reveals that the
rehabilitation of the deposed bishop had been a priority from the very
conception of the council, even though there were probably few bishops
outside the diocese of Oriens who would have supported this action if it
had not been perceived to chime with imperial wishes.The production
of a new definition of the faith was certainly opposed fiercely by the
bishops when it was first mooted by the imperial commissioners at the
second session: ‘This is what we all say. What has already been
expounded is sufficient. It is not permissible to produce another exposi¬
tion. ... We will not produce a written exposition. There is a canon which
declares that what has already been expounded is sufficient. The canon
forbids the making of another exposition. Let the [will] of the fathers
prevail.’^'* After a small drafting group had produced an initial defini¬
tion, the imperial commissioners backed reservations expressed by the
papal representatives and some eastern bishops, in spite of the fact that
the majority of bishops were chanting, ‘The definition has satisfied
everyone. Our statements to the emperor. This is the definition of the
orthodox... Another definition must not be produced. Nothing is
lacking in the definition.Although bishops shouted that those wanting
further change were Nestorians, this opposition collapsed in the face of
a threat to transfer the council to Italy, and a new drafting group quickly
produced an acceptable version.^'’

12 Gaddis (2005), 310-11.

13 Ste. Croix (2006), 285-94.

14 Acts II. 5, 7, ACO 2.1, p. 274.

15 Acts V. 11,18, ACO 2.1, p. 320.

16 See further Ste. Croix (2006), 284-5.

182

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

A further probable example of imperial wishes determining actions
without regard to episcopal preferences is the invitation to Nestorius to
attend the council, a proposal so contentious that the ecclesiastical histo¬
rian Evagrius rejected it as slander by the anti-Chalcedonian
Zachariah2^ It is difficult to believe that the bishops who found it diffi¬
cult to accept Theodoret into their presence would have sought the much
more disruptive attendance of Nestorius, but one can see how this might
have boosted the reputation of the imperial pair who could present
themselves as the agents for the re-establishment of complete harmony
in the Church2* Only Nestorius’ opportune death in Egypt, shortly after
he had received the summons, avoided an awkward scene2® The impe¬
rial commissioners might direct episcopal decisions even on quite minor
matters: thus at the eleventh session, when the dispute between
Bassianus and Stephen over the right to the see of Ephesus was being
decided and it became clear that both individuals had supporters,^° the
commissioners intervened to state that in their view both competitors
had transgressed, so that a new appointment must be made. Although
the commissioners were careful to express deference to the verdict of
the council,^^ there was no doubt now about the outcome and the secular
advice was duly endorsed by the bishops.

Chalcedon needs to be seen as a council whose key decisions had been
determined in advance by Marcian and Pulcheria, with the bishops
meeting to deliver the appropriate episcopal approval, whereafter they
could resolve various lesser ecclesiastical issues. Very few bishops could
have been entirely happy with the outcome, certainly not the papal
representatives, even though Chalcedon endorsed the Tome of Leo,
since papal claims to universal authority were compromised, nor the
leading bishops of the eastern empire who had to sign up to a new defi¬
nition contrary to their clear intentions. Although the council cleverly
presented itself as steering a compromise doctrinal course between the

17 Evagrius, Hist. Eccl. II. 2, trans. Whitby, p. 62.

18 See further Ste. Croix (2006), 280-1.

19 Zachariah, Hist. Eccl. III. 1, trans. Hamilton and Brooks, p. 42. Rufus, Plerophories
33, 36; PO 8,1911, pp. 76, 84-5.

20 Bassianus received two clear endorsements, from the bishops of Bizye and Juliopolis
as well as general chanting (Acts XI. 40-1,46, ACO 2.1, pp. 409-10), whereas Stephen
had one indirect endorsement phrased in terms of the reputation of Flavian of
Constantinople, who had consecrated him, while the Constantinopolitan contingent
naturally backed the decision of their former leader (Acts XL 43-4, ACO 2.1, p. 410).

21 Acts XL 47, ACO 2.1, p. 410.

AN UNHOLY CREW?

183

extremes of Nestorius’ presentation of Christ as a mere man and Euty-
ches’ rejection of the full humanity of Christ, in reality it was little
different from Second Ephesus in endorsing the triumph of one partic¬
ular viewpoint:^^ compromise came later as, between the late fifth and
the seventh centuries, successive emperors attempted to identify a
means to reconcile the vehement divisions aroused by the council3^

Marcian and Pulcheria wanted to emerge from the council as the
saviours of the Church, the new Constantine and Helena in the words of
acclamations which greeted their presence at the sixth session,^"* compar¬
isons which would probably have been known in advance to appeal to
imperial vanity. Against this background, the reporting of episcopal
misbehaviour at the council is unlikely to have been an accident, but
Gaddis’ suggestion that this was intended to validate the accuracy of the
record is implausible. It is likely that this departure from convention was
also part of the imperial project for the council. The bishops themselves
would scarcely have benefited from this publicity for their riotous
conduct, any more than British Members of Parliament, whose boorish
rowdiness was long concealed from public gaze by the traditions of
parliamentary reporting in Hansard and the conventions of the parlia¬
mentary lobby, had their collective reputation enhanced when television
cameras were permitted into the House of Commons. To the extent that
the text of the extremely long acts became public knowledge, their reve¬
lation of the realities of episcopal debate is more likely to have raised
the credit of the secular authorities, who had steered discussions towards
appropriate conclusions without infringing the liberty of the bishops to
indulge in their characteristic intemperance. The Acts of Chalcedon
introduce a period in which emperors, following the problems that
Theodosius II experienced with the councils at Ephesus that he had
entrusted to episcopal control, took charge of attempts to reach
doctrinal unity, from the encyclical letter of Leo requesting views on
Chalcedon and Timothy Aelurus, through Zeno’s Henotikon, to the
theopaschite. Three Chapters, and aphthartodocete initiatives of
Justinian. The Acts of Chalcedon demonstrated that bishops could not
be trusted to look after the business of the Church, especially on impor¬
tant matters.

Another type of poor behaviour to emerge from the acts, one at odds

22 Contra Gaddis (2005), 299, 310.

23 For subsequent developments see Frend (1972).

24 Acts VI. 11, ACO 2.1, p. 351.

184

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

with the ideal image of bishops as principled leaders in matters of faith,
is the failure of numerous bishops to defend their beliefs: over 100
bishops present at Second Ephesus also participated at Chalcedon, or
were represented there by deputies, but only Dioscorus stuck to his
views, since most of his non-Egyptian supporters abandoned him during
the first session and even some of his Egyptian bishops were prepared
to anathematize Eutyches at the fourth session4^ One line of defence
was ignorance of the issues. This was the first excuse advanced by
Theodore of Claudiopolis in a long justification for his change of heart
at Chalcedon: ‘Dioscorus and Juvenal and all those who signed first had,
as orthodox, been entrusted by the master of the world with passing
judgement in matters of faith. Plotting nefariously among themselves,
they made us act as judges, who were sitting in all innocence as men igno¬
rant of the affair.’^® It might seem surprising that the people responsible
for guiding local communities in matters of faith should express such
reservations about their own capacity, and when the same argument was
used at the fourth session by the group of thirteen Egyptian bishops, who
were attempting to avoid committing themselves to an anathema of
Eutyches, they incurred some mockery: ‘Cecropius the most devout
bishop of Sebastopolis said: “They don’t know what they believe. Are
they now willing to learn?”... Paschasinus, Lucentius and Boniface, the
most devout representatives of the apostolic see, said through Paschas¬
inus: “Having grown old as bishops in their churches for so many years
till this time, are they still ignorant of the orthodox and catholic faith,
and expect to depend on the judgement of another?”’^’ On the other
hand, it is a reminder that, although the ideal was for bishops to be
educated and confident leaders of their communities,^* many had prob¬
ably received no more than a modest education and so relied on
doctrinal experts such as Cyril, Theodore! or Dioscorus for guidance
through the minefields of current debate.

A second line of defence was intimidation by Dioscorus. Theodore of
Claudiopolis also exploited this option: ‘They brought us blank sheets -
Dioscorus and Juvenal - accompanied by a mob of disorderly people,
with a mass of them shouting and making a tumult and disrupting the
council... They made a sport of our lives.The composition of the mob

25 Acts IV. 42, AGO 2.1, p. 308.

26 Acts I. 62, AGO 2.1, p. 76.

27 Acts IV. 36, 38, AGO 2.1, p. 308.

28 Rapp (2006), ch. 6, esp. 178-83.

29 Acts I. 62, AGO 2.1, p. 76.

AN UNHOLY CREW?

185

is subsequently clarified by Basil of Seleucia, ‘Armed soldiers burst into
the church, and there were arrayed Barsauma and his monks, para-
balani, and a great miscellaneous mob,’^° while Marinianus of Synnada
states, ‘The counts entered, and they led in the proconsul with fetters
and with a great crowd.. Theodore attempted to justify his apparent
cowardice by parading his concern for all those whom he had baptized:
they would be ruined if his refusal to acquiesce in Dioscorus’ designs led
to him being branded a heretic, since this would invalidate their
membership of the Church.^^

A third defence was respect for authority. This was advanced by Basil
of Seleucia: in spite of his prominence as one of the six bishops excluded
at the end of the first session of Chalcedon for their role in controlling
proceedings at Second Ephesus, he was not quite of the stature of
Juvenal of Jerusalem or Thalassius of Caesarea in Cappadocia. On being
challenged by Dioscorus for showing respect to human beings while
rejecting the faith, Basil responded, ‘If I had been up before secular offi¬
cials, I would have borne witness; after all, I displayed boldness of speech
at Constantinople. But if one is judged by one’s father, one cannot
defend oneself. Death to a child who defends himself against his
father!When the imperial commissioners then remarked that Basil
had earlier been relying on the defence of compulsion, his potential
embarrassment was avoided by an outbreak of chanting from the eastern
bishops, ‘We all sinned, we all beg forgiveness.

These defences, however, do not entirely conceal signs of subservient
adaptability to the currently prevailing point of view. Both Basil of
Seleucia and Aethericus of Smyrna were in the embarrassing position of
having participated in Flavian of Constantinople’s sessions where Euty-
ches was examined, then of justifying at Second Ephesus their support
for his condemnation, and finally explaining these changes at Chalcedon
in the face of challenges from Dioscorus and limited sympathy from the
imperial commissioners. Aethericus first alleged, in a disjointed

30 Acts I. 851, ACO 2.1, p. 179. Parabalani were volunteers originally devoted to the
care of the sick, but increasingly used to intimidate opponents. See Kazhdan (1991),
III, 1582.

31 Acts I. 861, ACO 2.1, p. 180.

32 Zachariah, Hist. Eccl. III. 1 (trans. Hamilton and Brooks, p. 46) alleges that
Amphilochius of Side only subscribed to the Chalcedonian definition because Aetius,
archdeacon of Constantinople, hit him over the head.

33 Acts 1.180, ACO 2.1, p. 94.

34 Acts 1.183, ACO 2.1, p. 94.

186

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

exchange with Dioscorus at Second Ephesus, that his verdict at Constan¬
tinople had been a confused response to a request from Flavian shortly
after he had arrived to join the hearings, but then at Chalcedon he
denied this exchange without being able to provide specific corrobora¬
tion for his version.^^ At Ephesus Basil asserted, quite possibly correctly,
that the record of the Constantinople hearings did not preserve his full
contribution,^*’ but at Chalcedon relied on the allegations of intimidation
noted above to justify this change. Aethericus and Basil had particularly
difficult trajectories to explain, but there will have been many others
whose changes of heart were no more reputable. According to Theodore
of Claudiopolis, of the 135 participants at Second Ephesus, 42 had been
ordered to remain silent, only 15 were in Theodore’s group of opponents
or doubters, while all the remainder were with Dioscorus and Juvenal.^^
The Egyptian bishops mocked such cowardice, ‘A Christian fears no
one. An orthodox fears no one. Bring fire, and we shall learn. If they had
feared men, they would never have been martyrs.’^® A century later the
clergy of Milan, writing to Frankish envoys on their way to Constan¬
tinople with reference to the Three Chapters controversy, contrasted the
subservience of eastern bishops with the rectitude of their western oppo¬
nents: ‘For there are Greek bishops who have rich and opulent churches,
and cannot bear even a two-month interruption in the conduct of church
business; for this reason, as required by the situation and the will of the
princes, they assent without questioning to whatever is asked of them.
When the African bishops mentioned above reached the imperial city,
they began to press them, now by blandishments and now by threats, to
give their assent to the condemnation of the chapters. But when this
pressure failed utterly...’^®

The Egyptians at Chalcedon, however, proved to be no braver than
their opponents, when they had their own chance to display parrhesia in
support of their beliefs. At the fourth session, a group of thirteen former
supporters of Dioscorus attempted to avoid his downfall by petitioning
the emperor with a statement of orthodoxy in terms of Nicaea, Athana¬
sius and Cyril.'**’ Under challenge by the council, they reluctantly agreed

35 Acts I. 308-29, ACO 2.1, pp. 118-19.

36 Acts I. 545-6, ACO 2.1, pp. 144-5. Cf. I. 791, 798, ACO 2.1, pp. 173-4.

37 Acts I. 62, ACO 2.1, p. 76.

38 Acts I. 64, ACO 2.1, p. 76.

39 Schwartz (1940), 20, PL 69. 114C-119A, trans. Price (2009), 1,166-7.

40 Acts IV. 19-62, ACO 2.1, pp. 306-10.

AN UNHOLY CREW?

187

to pronounce an anathema against Eutyches, but then balked at the
demand to subscribe to the Tome of Leo, stating that they could not do
this without the approval of their archbishop - a post which had to be
filled following the deposition of Dioscorus. Initially they cited the
canons of Nicaea, which had confirmed the authority of Alexandria over
bishops in Egypt, but then pleaded more desperately that they would be
driven from their province, and finally that they would be killed, if they
ignored Egyptian custom in this. The bishops, and especially the papal
representatives, were not swayed by these arguments, but the imperial
commissioners acceded and permitted them to remain in Constan¬
tinople until a replacement for Dioscorus had been chosen. The
Egyptians’ fears were probably not excessive, as the fate of Dioscorus’
imperially-approved successor, Proterius, demonstrates: during the
uncertainty caused by the death of Marcian in 457, he was dragged from
his baptistery and torn to pieces by a mob who had not forgiven him for
betraying Dioscorus after Chalcedon. This passage is a useful reminder
that individual bishops could not necessarily dominate their own cities,
especially in matters of religion, if there was strong opposition within
their region from monks or other clergy. Even a bishop as powerful and
resourceful as Juvenal of Jerusalem might not be able to hold his own:
Juvenal was the most high profile turncoat at Chalcedon, having suppos¬
edly promised before setting out for the council not to abandon
Dioscorus’ position, but before he could return to Palestine a monk
named Theodosius had rushed back to the province to proclaim the
bishop’s treachery; Theodosius then secured appointment as bishop and
begun to ordain episcopal supporters, a challenge which took two years
and considerable imperial military support to suppress.'*^

The wider population might take some notice of what bishops did and
said at church councils. For the majority of bishops their main contribu¬
tion to a council was their availability as lobby fodder, numbers who
could lend greater weight to decisions by their mere presence, vociferous
during chanting but individually silent, except for the occasions when
they were required to state their opinion in sequence. It is easy to skip
over these long series of expressions of support, for explicit disagree¬
ment such as the papal legate Hilary declared at Second Ephesus is
extremely rare. On occasion, indeed, one bishop might be deputed to
deliver the verdict for a group, which might be regional or might simply

41 Zachariah, Hist. Eccl. III. 3-9, trans. Hamilton and Brooks, pp. 49-56. Evagrius, Hist.

Eccl. II. 5, trans. Whitby, pp. 78-80.

188

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

be those bishops who happened to be sitting together at the meeting, as
occurred when judgements were delivered on the dispute over the bish¬
opric of Ephesus between Bassianus and Stephen;"^^ occasionally several
bishops are reported by one of their number to hold the same view,"^^ and
a clear verdict on issues of secondary importance might be made by
supporting acclamations from ‘all the most devout bishops’ after an
appropriate number of senior bishops had pronounced.'*^^ It was,
however, expected that a bishop should normally formulate a declara¬
tion before subscribing to a decision, as Dioscorus urged when
defending his conduct of Second Ephesus: ‘Since they are making an
accusation that they were given a blank sheet to sign, who then
composed their declarations? I ask your magnificence to make them
answer.One response would have been that a sequence of formulaic
declarations had also been devised in advance by Dioscorus and his
supporters, but the fact that the imperial commissioners evaded the chal¬
lenge by insisting that the reading of the acts should continue might
suggest that Dioscorus had identified a weakness in the defence of the
inconsistent bishops.

In spite of the prevalence of formulae and the rarity of outright
disagreement, minor variations in expression could be significant, and
so they deserve attention. With regard to the case of Ibas of Edessa in
the tenth session, a first issue to be decided was whether the proceed¬
ings against Ibas at Second Ephesus should be read out. Although a
substantial portion of the first day’s events at Ephesus had been read
into the record of the first session at Chalcedon, in response to a sugges¬
tion from the presiding officials it was now decided that the council was
not to be mentioned again and its proceedings to have no force.'^*’ First
the papal representatives stated that the proceedings had been nullified
by Pope Leo, with the exception of the legitimacy of Maximus of
Antioch who had been received into communion by Leo. Then
Anatolius of Constantinople rehearsed the same points, but while he
noted Leo’s acceptance of Maximus, which served to obscure the fact
that Anatolius had consecrated Maximus in somewhat contentious
circumstances, the rectification of the errors of Ephesus is not attributed

42 Acts XL 40-41, ACO 2.1, pp. 409-10.

43 E.g. Acts X. 174, ACO 2.3, p. 490: six named bishops.

44 E.g. Acts X. 179, ACO 2.1, p. 401.

45 Acts I. 65, ACO 2.1, pp. 76-7.

46 Acts X. 143-60, ACO 2.1, pp. 397-8.

AN UNHOLY CREW?

189

to the pope. Juvenal of Jerusalem came third with a simple statement
that the emperor should decree his preference, and of the other 12
bishops whose opinions are recorded three explicitly related their
opinion to that of Juvenal and one paraphrased his opinion without
naming him, four referred more vaguely to the views of the fathers or
archbishops, Eunomius of Nicomedia stated that he would support the
decision of the council, ignoring the fact that he was one of those respon¬
sible for constructing that decision, while the last individual bishop to be
named in the sequence, Cecropius of Sebastopolis, bluntly stated, ‘We
ought not to mention that council.’ Stephen of Ephesus briefly rehearsed
the views of Anatolius, perhaps because the matter concerned his own
see, while Peter of Corinth noted that he had not participated at Second
Ephesus, being the first of the bishops who could register this excuse. In
this sequence there is clearly an issue over how much credit Leo is to be
accorded in developments, but many bishops are content to follow the
views of predecessors with minor changes of vocabulary so that a change
of emphasis by one bishop may then be picked up: the switch from refer¬
ences to Juvenal’s opinion to the more general ‘declarations of the
fathers’ was initiated by Constantine of Bostra, who may well have had
little liking for the ambitions of his powerful neighbour.'^^

This verdict on Second Ephesus was not contentious, but rather more
was at stake in the main decision on Ibas which immediately followed.'**
The papal representatives set the tone by referring to ‘the verdict of the
most devout bishops’, a reference to the judgement of Photius and
Eustathius at Tyre, which had in fact been more of a compromise than
a demonstration of Ibas’ innocence, and also declared that the infamous
letter (to Mari the Persian) was orthodox; they also referred the matter
of Ibas’ successor at Edessa, Nonnus, to decision by the Church of
Antioch. Next, Anatolius of Constantinople was a bit more circumspect,
referring to ‘the reading of all the accompanying material’, which implic¬
itly included the letter, and noting that he had held suspicions which
were now being set aside because Ibas had signed up to the decisions of
Chalcedon and the Tome of Leo; he ended by mentioning the issue of
Nonnus. Third, Maximus of Antioch followed the papal envoys in refer¬
ring to the orthodoxy of the letter, the only subsequent bishop to do so,
and then explained how a decision would be reached about Nonnus,
thereby removing that particular issue from subsequent opinions.

47 Acts X. 153, ACO 2.1, p. 398.

48 Acts X. 160-81, ACO 2.1, pp. 398^01.

190

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Juvenal of Jerusalem came fourth, and, as befitting one of Ibas’ bitterest
opponents, his verdict is distinctive: ‘Divine Scripture orders the
receiving back of those who repent, which is why we also receive people
from heresy. I therefore resolve that the most devout Ibas should receive
clemency, also because he is elderly, so as to retain the episcopal dignity,
being orthodox.A judgement of orthodoxy could scarcely be more
damning. Thalassius of Caesarea then put proceedings back on the
expected track by referring to Photius and Eustathius and Ibas’ willing¬
ness to anathematize heretical views, and this established a trend for the
following speakers, so that individual bishops began simply to agree to
the decision of the council or of the holy fathers. The only minor inter¬
ruption was when Eunomius of Nicomedia mentioned Ibas’ attacks on
Cyril of Alexandria, noting that he had corrected these errors in his
subsequent statements,^** but the sequence of straightforward support
was promptly restored.

A parallel case to that of Ibas was the full rehabilitation of Theodoret
which occupied the brief eighth session.^* As with Ibas, the papal envoys
initiated the record of views by noting that Pope Leo had welcomed
Theodoret back into communion some time previously, and that
Theodoret’s current written and verbal anathemas of Nestorius and
Eutyches had merely confirmed the rectitude of that decision. The papal
view of the council as a mechanism to endorse Pope Leo’s views was,
unsurprisingly, not picked up by any of the subsequent speakers.
Maximus of Antioch, speaking third, was the most effusive in affirming
Theodoret’s orthodoxy, which had, apparently, been evident to him
from the very beginning, a surprising assertion for someone who had
been consecrated during Theodoret’s exclusion from his see, but
perhaps necessary now that Maximus would have to deal closely with
Theodoret as the most influential bishop within the diocese of Oriens.
Juvenal of Jerusalem, who came next, is even more revealing, managing
a terse, ‘I too agree with the resolution of the most God-beloved
Anatolius archbishop of Constantinople’;^^ alone out of the bishops who

49 Acts X. 164, ACO 2.1, p. 399.

50 Acts X. 173, ACO 2.3, p. 490. This statement is supplied from the Latin version of the
Acts, having been excluded at some stage from the Greek Acts which attach
Eunomius to the six bishops in §174 {ACO 2.1, p. 400): see Price and Gaddis (2005),
II, 308, n. 125.

51 Acts VIII. 16-25, ACO 2.1, pp. 369-70.

52 Acts VIII. 19, ACO 2.1, p. 369.

AN UNHOLY CREW?

191

spoke he could not bring himself to mention his doctrinal enemy by
name, even though he could not avoid participating in his return.

The key decision on the first day of Second Ephesus, about the depo¬
sition of Flavian and Eusebius, produced a range of episcopal responses.
The sequence was initiated by Juvenal with a specific endorsement of
the judgement of Dioscorus against them, referring to their changes to
the faith established at Nicaea and the turmoil which they had caused.^^
Another enthusiast was Uranius of Hemerium in Osrhoene, who
suggested that ‘they ought not only to be deprived of ecclesiastical rank
but also subjected to the sword; for those who see their predecessors
incurring such a penalty will necessarily be deterred from such an
attempt. Because therefore Flavian and Eusebius have transgressed
them [the mandates of Nicaea and First Ephesus], I pronounce that they
are excluded from episcopal dignity and are worthy of misfortunes
beyond counting.’^'* At the opposite extreme from this endorsement of
the virtues of capital punishment were the statements of a few bishops
who expressed regrets. Eusebius of Ancyra began his opinion by
pronouncing, ‘I have always loved mercy’, Julian of Tavium was clearer,
‘It is with profound regret that I make this sad pronouncement, for such
is the rule of the wise’, while Epiphanius of Perge was more vehement,
‘Execrable was this to me. I too, while lamenting in my soul, concur with
the condemnation...’^^ Whether such sympathy was genuine cannot be
established, but it deserves note even if it merely expressed the humanity
which milder bishops felt they ought to articulate. One Egyptian bishop,
Zeno of Rhinocolura, adopted this line, which Dioscorus might not have
wanted to hear, though balancing it against the greater wickedness and
impiety of Flavian and Eusebius: ‘We ourselves, who follow the rules of
compassion and brotherly love, assent while lamenting to the just judge¬
ment promulgated against them.’^®

The intervention of the Egyptian contingent is of some interest, since
they were the last block of bishops to have the chance to contribute their
opinions, and by this stage a number of the statements had become brief
and formulaic. By contrast, the first of the Egyptians, Theopemptus of

53 Acts I. 966, ACO 2.1, p. 192.

54 Acts I. 1009, ACO 2.3, p. 244, §1012. From §971 the Greek version of the Acts only
records the names of the speakers, but their individual contributions are preserved in
the Latin Acts: Price and Gaddis (2005), I, 345, n. 503.

55 Acts I. 969, 981,1018, ACO 2.1, p. 192; ACO 2.3, p. 241, §984, p. 245, §1021.

56 Acts 1.1060, ACO 2.3, p. 251, §1063.

192

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Cabasa, pronounced the second longest judgement of the whole
sequence, a strong statement of support for the position of his metro¬
politan: ‘War is serious when waged by open enemies, but is still more
grievous when waged by false friends and deceivers, for they cause harm
by pretence, drawing the most simple away from piety and distancing
them from the doctrines of the church’; this continues with assertions
about the heresy of both Flavian and Eusebius, ‘formerly a wrong
appointment as bishop of the city of Dorylaeum’, before concurring with
the council’s verdict.^^ This rhetorical tour de force was only surpassed
by the next but one speaker, John of Hephaestus: ‘If a divine sentence
from the Saviour declared that he who causes one of the little ones to
fall incurs a most grievous penalty, what worthy of their impiety should
be suffered by those who at this time have thrown almost the whole
world into confusion and given confidence, as far as they could, to those
who follow the doctrines of Nestorius? In addition they have given
pagans and Jews the opportunity to deride and denigrate the Christian
faith, as if our orthodox and unimpeachable faith were unknown until
today, when in fact this faith was defined by the holy fathers at Nicaea
through the Holy Spirit, and was sealed a short time ago in this metrop¬
olis also.’^® John had not quite reached the mid-point of his harangue.
Theodulus of Tesila in Cyrenaica endorsed scriptural violence against
the guilty: ‘It would have been better for the former bishops Flavian and
Eusebius if they had not been born, but to have millstones hung around
their necks and be thrown into the sea, because they have caused simple
souls to transgress.’® Although many Egyptians dutifully supported
Dioscorus with standard statements, there also appears to have been
competition among some bishops to attract attention through the diver¬
sity and ingenuity of their intervention.

When the time came to pass judgement on Dioscorus at Chalcedon,
there were very few bishops who were prepared to depart from the
explicit condemnation initiated by the papal representatives. Of the
bishops who delivered anything more than bland assent, only
Amphilochius of Side and Epiphanius of Perge appear less than enthu¬
siastic: ‘It was not my wish to cut off any member whatsoever of the
church, particularly one of rank. But because Dioscorus, formerly
bishop of the great city of Alexandria, in addition to the charges that

57 Acts 1.1043, ACO 2.3, p. 248, §1046.

58 Acts 1.1045, ACO 2.3, p. 249, §1048.

59 Acts 1.1057, ACO 2.3, p. 251, §1060.

AN UNHOLY CREW?

193

certain persons have brought against him, refused to present himself
when summoned for a third time by the holy and ecumenical council and
brought down the sentence of the council on his own head, he has only
himself to blame.Amphilochius appears to have been unhappy with
the Chalcedonian definition, which he refused to endorse when
consulted by Emperor Leo in 458;'’^ a story in Rufus’ Plerophories (85)
might indicate that he and Epiphanius had been expected to show
greater support for Dioscorus, so their regretful endorsement of the
deposition, with the emphasis on the three summons rather than any
other wrong-doing, was intended to be a deliberate signal.

It is easy to see how high-level rivalry between major sees or
contentious issues relating to prominent bishops might generate diver¬
gences, but there are also interesting differences in the responses to
some of the more specific difficulties which Chalcedon was required to
address after the weighty doctrinal and disciplinary matters had been
handled. The dispute between Stephen and Bassianus over who should
hold the see of Ephesus had occupied the eleventh session on 29
October, with one important issue being who had the right to consecrate
the individual, since the see of Constantinople had been attempting to
secure recognition for its rights over the metropolitan see of the province
of Asia. On the following day, the twelfth session opened with a grumble
from the presiding officials about how the prolongation of the council
was impinging on public business.® At once Anatolius of Constan¬
tinople and the papal representatives gave a clear steer that both
claimants should be ejected because of their uncanonical route to the
bishopric, but that both also deserved continuing support from the
Church of Ephesus. Maximus of Antioch, however, stated that clemency
suggested that, in spite of the wrong-doing, one of the competitors
should be selected by the provincial bishops. The next three speakers
ignored this diversion, but then Julian of Cos returned to Maximus’ line
that, in spite of the canonical irregularity, the Council of Asia should
select which was to remain in post. Eusebius of Dorylaeum promptly
stressed the breach of the canons, while Diogenes of Cyzicus responded
by upholding the superior knowledge of the provincial bishops. In spite
of this disagreement, which was clear even if not directly antagonistic, a

60 Acts III. 96.22-23, ACO 2.3, p. 309, §94.22-3. Again the full statements of
Amphilochius and Epiphanius have to be supplied from the Latin Acts.

61 Evagrius, Hist. Eccl. II. 10, trans. Whitby, p. 92.

62 Acts XII. 2, ACO 2.1, p. 412.

194

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

subsequent bishop could state, T too agree with the decrees of the most
holy bishops before me.’ Diogenes had the last word, responding to the
positive general chant of ‘This is a pious proposal. This is according to
the canons’, with the less enthusiastic, ‘It is better than the others.’® The
issue of Constantinople’s expansion of control influenced these
comments, with even Maximus, who had been consecrated by Anatolius,
supporting those who wished to keep this in check; for the time being
the weight of opposition to Constantinople’s ambitions deferred a deci¬
sion on this matter, though within two more days the imperial capital
had secured its wishes, to be enshrined in the contentious Canon 28.

There are occasions when variation seems to have had little point.
Discussion of the case of Athanasius of Perrhe at the fourteenth session
involved the reading of proceedings at a local synod in Antioch in 445.
On that occasion 23 bishops had offered an opinion about Athanasius’
failure to appear, and, although there was no disagreement about the
issues or verdict and the speakers drew on common themes of letters of
excuse, guilty conscience, failure to respond to three summons, and
friendship with the presiding bishop, they managed to express their
views in different ways without precise verbal overlap.® There seems to
be deliberate avoidance of exact repetition in this first round of
responses,® but shortly after, when the same bishops were asked about
the related issue of the content of certain letters from Athanasius, their
inventiveness had dwindled and half resorted to statements along the
lines of, ‘I too have come to the same opinion.’® A third round of deci¬
sion-making initially prompted diversity of expression, but this tailed off
towards the end.®

Bishops were on display at church councils, in the first instance to their
fellow bishops, but then indirectly to wider audiences through the
reports which other attendees would broadcast or through dissemina¬
tion of the acts. Most attention would naturally focus on the
metropolitans and other leaders, but even a lowly bishop might want to
point out back home how he had contributed to discussions. The acts of
councils present invaluable information, and the Acts of Chalcedon in

63 Acts XII. 19, 23-4, ACO 2.1, p. 414.

64 Acts XIV. 38-60, ACO 2.1, pp. 429-30.

65 Two of the bishops resorted to generic agreement with the holy council/fathers, but
that still leaves a considerable display of diversity.

66 Acts XIV. 76-95, ACO 2.1, pp. 433-4.

67 Acts XIV. 123-48, ACO 2.1, pp. 436-40.

AN UNHOLY CREW?

195

particular, since these do not seem to have undergone a smoothing
process to reduce the discordances and disruptions of passionate debate
and also preserve discussions on a series of relatively local issues which
did not usually reach an ecumenical council. If the bishops emerge as
less than perfect, that should be no surprise: episcopal susceptibility to
human failings is evident from a range of sources - the letters of Sido-
nius Apollinaris on competition for office in fifth-century Gaul, or of
Pope Gregory on disputes in Dalmatia and Italy in the 590s, accounts of
personal as well as regional rivalries in the fifth-century church histo¬
rians, or Procopius of Caesarea’s allusion (Wars 11.7.17) to the flight of
Bishop Ephraem from Antioch in 540. Even the Life of Theodore of
Sykeon, which attempts to present an ideal image of its honorand,
provides enough information for the modern reader to infer that the
great ascetic was not completely successful as a bishop. Equally,
Dioscorus whose ruthless pursuit of doctrinal victory as well as Egyptian
supremacy emerges from the council acts, could be presented in hagiog¬
raphy as an unbending pillar of orthodoxy, while in the mainstream
Chalcedonian tradition the bishops whose imperfections have been
reviewed above became the 630 holy fathers who, with divine inspira¬
tion, had defined the true faith.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, ed. Eduard Schwartz and others (Berlin,
1914-).

Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History, trans. Michael Whitby, TTH 33 (Liverpool,
2000 ).

Frend, W.H.C. (1972), The Rise of the Monophysite Movement: Chapters in the
History of the Church in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries (London).

Gaddis, Michael (2005), There is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Reli¬
gious violence in the Christian Roman Empire (Berkeley).

Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres, ed. Ernst Diehl, 3 vols (Berlin, 1925-
31).

Kazhdan, A.P. (1991), The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 3 vols (Oxford).

Price, Richard and Gaddis, Michael (2005), The Acts of the Council of Chal-
cedon, TTH 45 (Liverpool).

Price, R.M. (2009), Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553, trans. with
introduction and notes, 2 vols, TTH 51 (Liverpool).

Rapp, Claudia (2005), Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity. The Nature of Christian
Leadership in an Age of Transition (Berkeley).

196

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Schwartz, Eduard (1940), Vigiliusbriefe. SBAW.PH, Heft 2 (Munich).

Ste. Croix, G.E.M. de (2006) ‘The Council of Chalcedon’ (with additions by
Michael Whitby), in id., Christian Persecution, Martyrdom, and Orthodoxy,
ed. Michael Whitby and Joseph Streeter (Oxford), 259-319.

(Ps.-)Zachariah of Mitylene, Historia Ecclesiastica. Trans. F.J. Hamilton and
E.W. Brooks, The Syriac Chronicle known as that of Zachariah of Mitylene
(London, 1899; New York, 1979).

INDEX

Acacius of Constantinople (d. 489) 21,115
acclamations 169-77

at Aphrodisias, Caria 173-5
at Athens 171

at church councils 170-6,179,188
at Chalcedon 16,18, 74, 78-82, 87, 92,
96,100,122,150,169-76,183
at Ephesus against St Paul 169
at Ephesus I (431) 33 n. 16, 38-9
at Ephesus II (449) 14, 58, 62,172-6
at Mylasa 170
at Oxyrhynchus 170
at Rome 170-1
at Sardica 170
at Termessus (Lycia) 172-3
at Tyre 170
patterns in 171-4

Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum
(ACO), see Riedinger, Schwartz
acts {acta), conciliar
authority of 87-90

circulation of 32, 41, 48, 66-7, 92,119,
142-4

editing of 27-8, 32^3, 46-9, 61, 94-
105,135-7,144

read out at councils 29-31, 42-3, 74,
85-6

see also councils, and individual
councils

Aethericus of Smyrna (at Chalcedon)
185-6

Aetius, archdeacon of Constantinople (at
Chalcedon) 79 n. 34, 80,185 n. 32
Africans and Lateran Council (649) 136,
141

Agatho (pope 678-81) 158
akephaloi (‘headless’), rejectors of both
Chalcedon and the Henotikon 115
Albinus of Aphrodisias, acclamations for
173-4

Alexakis, Alexander 4,137-8
Alexandria, Council of (338) 9 n. 6
Alexandrian ‘School’, a problematic
term 108-12

Amphilochius of Side (at Chalcedon) 185

n. 32,192-3

Anastasius I (emperor 491-518) 65
Anastasius II (pope 496-8) 154
Anastasius Apocrisarius (d. 662) 135-7,
143

Anastasius the Disciple (Jl. 650) 135-7
Anathemas, Twelve, see Cyril of

Alexandria, Third Letter to Nestorius
Anatolius of Constantinople (d. 458)
at Chalcedon 75-80 and n. 35, 84-5,
95-9,150 and n. 10,188-90,193-4
and Pope Leo 19, 72,152-3
Anatolius, magister militum praesentalis,
chairman at Chalcedon 73-84, 94-9,
104,122

see also commissioners, imperial
Anthimus of Constantinople (fl. 536) 66
Antioch, Councils of: (325) 93, (c. 330)
153, (341), 72 n. 13, (445) 194
Antiochene ‘School’, a misleading term
108-11

Aphrodisias (Caria), see acclamations
Apiarius, dispute over, in canonical
collections 154

Apollinarius, Apollinarianism 12-17,
112-14

Apostolic Constitutions, in canonical
collections 154-6
Arianism 9-11,130
Arles, Council of (314) 2
Armenian traditions in the canons of
Trullo 159-60,163
Ascidas, see Theodore Ascidas
Asiana, authority of see of
Constantinople in 83^, 193
Assyrian Church of the East, see Church
of the East

Athanasius of Alexandria 2, 9-13,110-12
On the incarnation 111-12
version of Nicene creed 29 n. 27
Athanasius of Perrhe (at Chalcedon) 194
Athens, see acclamations
Atticus of Nicopolis (at Chalcedon) 119
Augustine of Hippo, and acclamations
172-6

198

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Barsauma, monk (at Ephesus II) 180,185
Basil of Caesarea 10
Canons of 156-7

Basil of Seleucia (at Chalcedon) 81, 94,
185-6

Bassianus, claimant of see of Ephesus (at
Chalcedon) 182,188,193
Berytus, hearing at (449) 63-4, 85-6, 99
Bilingualism

of Dionysius Exiguus 155
and Lateran Council 137,144
bishops

and acclamations 171-5

behaviour of, at church councils 178-95

Candidianus, Count, imperial

representative at Ephesus (431) 32, 77
canon law

eastern 150,153,156-66
western 154-5,163^
canonical collections

Dionysius Exiguus, Codex canonum
154

John Scholasticus, Synagoge in 50
titles 156-7

Meletius of Antioch, Syntagma 153
Synagoge in 60 titles 156
western 154

canons, see individual councils
Capreolus of Carthage, letter to Ephesus
(431) 34-9, 41 n. 38

Carthage, Council of (419), Canons 153-
4

Caspar, Erich 136,138
Cecropius of Sebastopolis (at
Chalcedon) 184,189
Celestine (pope 422-32) 33, 40-1
celibacy, Roman practice of 160-1
Chaereas, Flavius, praeses of Osrhoene
58, 60, 62
Chalcedon

church of St Euphemia 73, 98
metropolitan status of 82 and n. 40
Chalcedon, Council of (Fourth

Ecumenical Council, 451) 15-20, 70-
105,118-24

acclamations at 16,18, 74, 78-82, 87,
92, 96,100,122,150,169-76,183
Acts, authority of 87-90
Acts, editing of 92-105,183; Latin
version 100-1
attendance 102-4

bishops’ behaviour 180-94
Canons 1-27 99,148 n, 2,150,154,
159-60,165-6

Canon 28 18-19, 84-5, 98-102,114,
151-6,194

chairman, see Anatolius, magister
militum

Creed of 381 cited at 75
Cyril of Alexander, letters cited 75-6,
78, 85

Definition of the Faith 75-6, 79-82,
113-14

Ephesus I, Canon 7 cited 75
Ephesus II, Acts read and condemned
74, 83

Leo’s Tome read and approved 74-8
Nicene Creed cited 15-16, 75,118 and
n. 4,130 n. 41

reinterpretation of its work in sixth
century 119-24,130-1
sees, disputes over 83^, 150-1,193^
Session I 74,184-6
Session II 74-6, 95,119,181
Session III 76-8, 92-3,101-3,192-3
Session IV 78, 92,103-4,184,186-7
Session V 79-81, 95-7,181
Session VI 82
Session VII 83 n. 44
Session VIII 85, 97,121-3,190-1
Session X 85-7, 92,120-1,188-90
Sessions under Anatolius of
Constantinople 98-9
see also Anatolius of Constantinople,
Dioscorus, Domnus, Ibas, Marcian,
Paschasinus, Theodore!

Chalon, Council of (7650) 143
Chaniotis, Angelos 170-1
Christ, depiction as Lamb of God
forbidden at Trullo 162
Christological debates
fourth century 9-11
fifth century 11-21, 70-1, 79-81,107-
15

sixth century 119-20,129-31
seventh century 133-5,140-3
Church of the East 8 n. 3,108
clerical life in the canons 85,148-50,
159-62,165-6
Collectio Vaticana 28
commissioners, imperial, chairing
Chalcedon 17-19,180-8
see also Anatolius, magister militum

INDEX

199

Constans II (emperor 641-68)
issues the Typos 134

Constantine I (emperor 306-37) 2, 4—5, 9,
82, 93

edict on reporting of acclamations 175
Constantine IV (emperor 668-85) 157
Constantine (pope 708-15)
visit to Constantinople 163
Constantine of Bostra (at Chalcedon)

189

Constantinople

Great Palace of 148-9,158
Hippodrome 161,163
supposed origin of see 156
authority of, see Chalcedon, Canon 28
Constantinople (381), Council of

canons 14 n. 18,100-1,151,153-5,160
creed 10-11,18-21, 75
Constantinople (448), Home Synod, 30 n.
8,71,80, 94,185-6

hearing to check minutes (449) 30, 94,
122

Constantinople (532), Conference, 119,
124 n. 26

Constantinople (536), Home Synod, 47,
66-7,176

Constantinople (553), Council, 20,119-
31

on Cyril’s campaign against Theodore
of Mopsuestia 127-9
use of florilegia at 138
Constantinople (680-1), Council, 1 n. 2,

4,148-50,158

Constantinople (869-70), Council, 164
councils, church

behaviour of bishops 178-95
consensus 3^, 76, 92^, 123,141
iconography 6

lay leadership 73, 95,149-51,158 n. 43
reading of documents: Ephesus (431)
32^2; Ephesus (449) 30, 58-60, 62;
Chalcedon 74-5; 85-6;
Constantinople (553) 127,137-8;
Lateran (649) 137-8,141
subscriptions of bishops 30, 32, 82,
101^, 178,185 n. 32
see also acclamations, acts, (councils
of) Antioch, Arles, Chalcedon,
Constantinople, Elvira, Ephesus,
Lateran, Nicaea, Quinisext, synods
creeds, see Constantinople (381), Nicaea
Cubitt, Catherine 5,157

Cyril of Alexandria

at Ephesus I (431) 12-13, 28-41, 70
authority of, at Chalcedon 15-16, 20,
75-8, 81 and n. 37, 86,118-20
Christology of 11-12, 70-1,110-13
and Theodore of Mopsuestia 124-9
Against Diodore and Theodore 126
Against Nestorius 114
Letter to John of Antioch (Laetentur
caeli) 13,16, 20, 75, 87,118,124
Second Letter to Nestorius 11-12,16,
20, 33, 39, 75, 78,118,120 n. 11
Third Letter to Nestorius (with
Twelve Anathemas) 11-12,15, 33,
36-41, 76, 85,112-14,117-20,130-
1

Daniel of Carrhae, condemned at
Ephesus II 59, 63

Daniel of Salah, Commentary on Psalms
55 n. 6

De Halleux, Andre 27 n. 1, 34-5, 39 and
n. 32, 40 and n. 33,118
Deusdedit of Cagliari (at Lateran
Council 649) 137
dioceses

of East Illyricum, transferred to
Constantinople 163 and n. 73
Oriental 60,107,109
Pontic and Thracian 84
Diodore of Tarsus 64-5,110,126
Diogenes of Cyzicus (at Chalcedon) 17-
18,193^

Dionysius Exiguus, Collectio Dionysiana
102 n. 34,154-7

Dioscorus of Alexandria 14 n. 18, 71-2
at Ephesus II 14, 45, 71,180,184-8,
191

at Chalcedon 74-80,101-4,180,185-
8,192-3

in Coptic hagiography 78 n. 32,195
letter to bishops 55-6; to Domnus of
Antioch 59

discipline, ecclesiastical 149,151,157,
159-62

Domnus of Antioch (deposed 449) 58-
63, 71, 83, 86
Donus (pope 676-8) 157

Easter, date of 155-7
ecumenical councils

origin of ‘ecumenical’ 9 n. 6

200

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

see Nicaea (325), Constantinople
(381), Ephesus (431), Chalcedon
(451), Constantinople (553),
Lateran (649), Constantinople
(680/1), Quinisext (692), Nicaea
(787)

Edessa

acclamations at 172,174,175,176
see also Ibas
Ekthesis, see Heraclius
Elvira, Council of (c. 303) 2
Ephesus, city of 21, 62, 70, 83,169
dispute over see (in 451) 83-4,153 n.
22,182,188,193

Ephesus, First Council of (431) 12-13,

21, 27^3,110,115,117-20
acts, editing of 27^3
Canon 7 of 12-14,16,18-19, 75
cited at Chalcedon 75, 78, 88-9
Ibas of Edessa on 61, 87,121
Oriental (Syrian) bishops 28, 29 and n.
6, 32, 41

readings at 32-42
session of 22 June 31-41
session of 22 July 41-2
see also Cyril of Alexandria, Nestorius
Ephesus, Second Council of (449) 14, 58-
62, 71-2

Acts, Greek, read at Chalcedon 45, 74
Acts, Syriac 45-69,172; MS of 47, 49-
50, 55-7, 66-7

alleged violence at 180,184-5
bishops’ behaviour at 185-6,191-2
decrees annulled at Chalcedon 83,
188-9

readings at 30, 58-60, 62
sessions 62

Ephraem of Antioch (d. 544) 109,195
Epiphanius of Constantinople (d. 535) 66
Epiphanius of Perge (at Chalcedon) 191-
3

Eraclius of Hippo (430s) 175-6
Eunomius of Nicomedia (at Chalcedon)
189-90

Eusebius of Ancyra (at Chalcedon) 152,
191

Eusebius of Dorylaeum (at Chalcedon)
13-14, 71, 74, 77, 94,191-3
Eutyches, archimandrite 13-18, 21, 72 n.
12, 80,184,186-7

condemnation of (448) 13-14,17,71,94
reinstatement (449) 71

second deposition (450) 72
Eutychius of Constantinople (d. 565) 149
Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History 18, 21, 48

Facundus of Hermiane 99

Pro defensione trium capitulorum 65
Fairburn, Donald 112
Ferrandus of Carthage

Letter on the Three Chapters 89, 94
Flavian of Constantinople (d. 449) 13-14,
80,182 n. 20

chaired Home Synod (448) 13,71,185-6
condemned at Ephesus II (449) 14,
71-2,179,191-2

Flavian of Philippi (at Ephesus I) 34 n.

18, 35

Flemming, J.P.G. 57, 62
Florentius, patrician (fl. 450) 94
Formula of Reunion (433) 13,16, 20, 70,
75,113,121,124
Frankfurt, Council of (794) 139

Gaddis, Michael 1, 6, 7,17, 45, 48,179,
181,183

Gavrilyuk, Paul 112
Gibbon, Edward

on Byzantine decadence 22-3
Graumann, Thomas 4
Greek

as the language of councils 45-9
as the original language of Acts of
Lateran (649) 135
Gregory I (pope 590-604) 195
Grillmeier, Alois 7,113

Hatch, W.H.P. 52

Henotikon of Zeno (482) 21,109,114-15,
183

Heraclius (emperor 610-41) 157
Ekthesis (638) of 134,140,144
Hermaius, ekdikos of Termessus,
acclamations for 172-5
Herrin, Judith 5
Hiba, see Ibas

Hilary, Roman deacon (at Ephesus II)
179-80,187

home synods, see Constantinople,
councils of

Honorius (pope 625-38) 157-8
Hormisdas (pope 514-23)

commission of Dionysius Exiguus’
canon collection 154

INDEX

201

Hypatius of Ephesus

leads Chalcedonian delegation at
conference of 532: 119

Ibas of Edessa 63,125,174

Letter to Mari the Persian 59-62, 85-
7, 99-100,121

condemned at Ephesus II 62-3,188
case reviewed at Chalcedon 63^, 83,
85-7,120-4,188-90
Innocent I (pope 401-17)

letters in Collectio Dionysiana 155
Irenaeus of Lyons (2nd c.) 8,129
Islam

and Quinisext Council 158,164

‘Jacobites’ (Syrian Orthodox) 108-9
Jerusalem, see of 150,154-5,160
Jewish practices

and Trullo canons 159-60,164
John of Antioch (d. 441/2) 13,113,125-6
John Chrysostom

as exegete and theologian 111
on acclamations 170
John of Germanicia (at Chalcedon) 46,
63, 97

John of Hephaestus (at Ephesus II) 192
John of Philadelphia and Lateran acta
143

John Philoponus

on Chalcedon 95,120,123
John Rufus, Plerophories 193
John Scholasticus of Constantinople (d.
577)

Synagoge in 50 titles 156-7
Julian of Cos (at Chalcedon) 193
Julian of Tavium (at Ephesus II) 191
Justin I (emperor 518-27) 65,115
Justinian I (emperor 527-65)

and Council of Constantinople (553)
127-30

ecclesiastical policy 3 n. 6, 65-7,130-1
edict On the orthodox faith (551) 88,
120

legislative activity of 155-8
revisionist literature on 1 n. 2
and Three Chapters controversy 65,
99-100,123-9,133

Justinian II (emperor 685-95, 705-11)
148-9,158,164

Juvenal of Jerusalem (fl. 450) 60, 86,
184-91

Lateran Council (649) 133-44

acta of 133 n. 3; authenticity of 135-6
and n. 13; dissemination of 142-;
Greek and Latin versions of 135-8,
143^; as propaganda 143
attendance 136-7,140
‘ecumenical’ status 138-9
florilegia, use of 138,141
Sessions I-II 140-2
see also Martin (pope), Maximus the
Confessor

Lateran Council, Fourth (1215)

recognized status of Constantinople
155

Latin

canonical collections 154-5
at Chalcedon 76
at Constantinople (536) 61 n. 8
versions of acts 46, 48, 60,135-6
Latrocinium, see Ephesus, Second
Council of

Leo I (emperor 457-74)

Ency dial Codex Encyclius 109,183
Leo I (pope 440-61)

and Anatolius of Constantinople 19,
152

and Canon 28 of Chalcedon 84,100-1,
152-3

and Chalcedon 17, 72-3, 80, 95, 97,

114

and Ephesus II 72,179-80,188
and Dioscorus of Alexandria 72-3
and Maximus of Antioch 83,188
and Pulcheria 72
and Theodoret 121,190
Tome of (449) 16-18, 20, 72-80,187,
189

Leo IX (pope 1049-54)
and celibacy 161

Leontius of Antioch (d. 357) 109
Leontius of Jerusalem 22 n. 32
Liber Pontificalis
on Pope Martin 142
Liberatus, Breviarium 65
Lietzmann, Hans 62
liturgical

commemoration of church councils 6
regulation of in canons of Trullo 162
Lucentius, Roman legate at Chalcedon
101 n. 28,151,152,184

202

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

Macedonius

condemned at Constantinople (381)
15,17

Manichaeism 95
Marcian (emperor 450-7)

and Chalcedon 72, 80, 82^, 90, 95-6,
149-50,180-3

edicts and letters confirming
Chalcedon 18, 97 n. 12
Mari the Persian, see Ibas, Letter to Mari
Marianinus of Synada (at Chalcedon)

185

Martin 1 (pope 649-53)
arrest, trial, death of 134
Commemoratio of 139-40,143
knowledge of Greek 136 and n. 16
and the Lateran Council (649) 138-42
circulates the acta 142-4
role in the acta 135,138-9
Maurus of Ravenna

letter to Lateran Council 140-1
Mary, Virgin: see Theotokos
Maximus of Antioch (at Chalcedon) 72,
83,188-90,193^

on Ibas’ Letter to Mari the Persian 86,
121

Maximus the Confessor

and Lateran Council (649) 134-7,
139-40,143^

Meletius of Antioch (d. 381)

Syntagma kanonon 153
Meliphthongus of Juliopolis (at
Chalcedon) 102

Menas of Constantinople (d. 552) 66
miaphysite, see non-Chalcedonians,
Oriental Orthodox Churches
Michael the Syrian, Chronicle 55 n. 6
Millar, Fergus 1, 3, 5,128 n. 36
monks, monasteries in canon law 150,
159,161,165-6

‘monophysite’, see non-Chalcedonians
monothelete (one-will) doctrine 133^,
136-7,141,143,158

Mylasa, acclamations in inscription from
170

Neo-Chalcedonianism 20, 65, 67,114
‘Nestorian’ Church, see Church of the
East

Nestorianism

condemned at Ephesus I 42
condemned in the Henotikon (482) 21

condemned by Justinian 65-6,131
Nestorius

anathematized at Chalcedon by Ibas
and Theodore! 85-7,122
attacked by Cyril of Alexandria 70,
111-13

Book (Bazaar) of Heraclides 48
condemned at Ephesus (431) 15, 32^,
38

exile and death 48, 64,182
extracts from writings read at Ephesus
34 n. 18

Second Letter to Cyril 11,12, 33, 37
and Theotokos 70
Newman, John Henry 23 and n. 35
Nicaea, intended location for Council of
Chalcedon 16, 73
Nicaea, Council of (325) 2, 9-10
canons of 151^, 156,187
Nicaea, Second Council of (787)
co-operation of Rome and
Constantinople at 164
‘stage-management’ of 138
Nicene Creed 10-13, 81

authority of: at Ephesus (431) 12-13,
33; at Ephesus (449) 14; at
Chalcedon 15-16, 75,118 and n. 4,
130 n. 41; in the Henotikon 21
text of 1 n. 2,19 n. 27
used by Cyril of Alexandria against
Nestorius 16, 37-8, 42
Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, see
Constantinople, Council of (381),
Creed

Nika riot (532) and acclamations 174
Nomokanon in Fifty Titles, (late 6th c.)
corpus of civil and ecclesiastical law
157

non-Chalcedonians 1, 3, 45, 65, 95,107-
15,119

and Justinian 47, 55 n. 6, 65-7,19
Nonnus of Edessa (at Chalcedon) 189

Oriental Orthodox Churches 8 n. 3,108
Oxyrhyncus, acclamations at 170

pagan practices banned at Trullo 161,163
papacy

papal decrees in canon law 154-6
papal legates at councils: Ephesus
(431) 41-2; Ephesus (449) 72,179-
80,187; Chalcedon 72-3, 78-81, 84,

INDEX

203

95-101,120-1,151-2 and n. 17,
181-2,184; Quinisext 158 and n. 43
papal primacy 84,101,140,151-2,
155-6,160,163-4

tensions in relations with Byzantium:
(in 449) 72, (in 451-3) 84, (in 649)
133^, 138-40,142,144,157
parabalani (at Ephesus II) 185 and n. 30
Paschasinus of Lilybaeum, senior papal
legate at Chalcedon
chairman of Session III of Chalcedon
73,76,103

likely knowledge of Greek 76, 86
see also papacy: papal legates at
councils

Paul III of Constantinople (d. 694) and
Quinisext Council 149,158,164
Perry, S.G.F. 46

Peter of Alexandria (notary at Ephesus
I) 12, 34 n. 18, 35, 39 n. 31
Peter of Corinth (at Chalcedon) 189
Peter the Fuller (patriarch of Antioch
470-88) 21 n. 30,109,115
Peterson, Erik 169
Philoxenus of Mabbug 109,115
Photius of Tyre

chaired hearing on Ibas (449) 86,189,
190

Pliny, Panegyricus, acclamation of
emperors in 170
Pope, see papacy

popular belief and practice in canons of
Trullo 158-63

Price, Richard 1 and n. 2, 5, 6, 7,17, 30,
45, 48,112,113 and n. 19,114,144 n.
54

Prisca version of Latin canonical
collection 154

Proclus of Constantinople (d. 447)
campaign against Theodore of
Mopsuestia 70 n. 4,124-9
Tome to the Armenians 125,128
Proterius of Alexandria (d. 457)
murder of 109,187
Pulcheria (empress, d. 453)

at Chalcedon 78 n. 32, 82,180-3
correspondent of Pope Leo 72 and n.
11

religious policy of 3-4
Quartodecimans

‘reconciled’ by agents of Nestorius 42

Quinisext Council (Trullanum, in Trullo,
Penthekte, Quinisextum, 692) 148-66
attendance at 158
bishops at 149-50,158,161,163
canons 158-66: on abortion 162; alien
practices, Armenian, Jewish,
Roman, and pagan 159-61; artistic
depictions 162-3; behaviour in
church 162; clergy and monks 159;
divination 161; marriage 159-60;
priests and monks 159;
inappropriate behaviour in church
162, respect of bibles 162; women
162

and Council of Chalcedon 155-6,159-
60,164-6

and Council of Constantinople (381)
155,160
name of 148-9

and primacy of sees 155-6,160,163-4
western recognition of 163-4

Rabbula of Edessa (d. 435)

Rapp, Claudia 178-9
Ravenna, separatist claims of 164
readings of documents, see councils,
reading

Richard, Marcel 125,129
Riedinger, Rudolf 1 n. 2, 4,135-6,138,
141-2

‘Robber Council’, see Ephesus, Second
Council of

Romanus of Myra (at Chalcedon) 18
Rome

acclamations in 170-1
St John Lateran’s 180
Senate 93,170-1
see also papacy
Roueche, Charlotte 6
Rufus, see John Rufus
Rusticus, Roman deacon (fl. 550)
defended Ibas’ letter 99
edited Latin version of Acts of
Chalcedon 101

Sardica, Council of (342/3)
acclamations of assent at 170
canons in later canonical collctions
153 ^
schism

in the east 108

between east and west 72,115,157,164

204

CHALCEDON IN CONTEXT

in the west 133

Schwartz, Eduard 1 n. 2, 27 and n. 4, 28
and n. 5, 35, 45,102,125,128 n. 36,129
Scripture 9,10, 22-3, 89,162,190,192
Seeck, Otto 74
Severus of Antioch (d. 538)

anathematized (536) 65-7, 66, 67
and Chalcedon 80 n. 36,115
Shestov, Lev, Russian philosopher
(1866-1938) 117
Sidonius Apollinaris, letters 195
Sigibert, Frankish king 142-3
simony 151

Siricius (pope 384-99) 154
Sophronius of Constantia (at Chalcedon)
97

Sophronius of Jerusalem (d. 638) 134,141
Sophronius of Tella/Constantia (at
Chalcedon)

tried in absentia at Ephesus II 46, 59,
62-3

Ste. Croix, Geoffrey de 73,181
stenography and records of church
councils 174-5.

Stephen of Dora, papal legate in
Palestine 141-2

Stephen of Ephesus (at Chalcedon) 182
and n. 20,188-9,193
Synagoge in 50 titles 5 n. 12,156-7
Synagoge in 60 titles 156
synodos endemousa (Home Synod), see
Constantinople (448) and (536)
synods

of Antioch (445) 194
of Jerusalem (536) 66
in North Africa 34
^ee also home synods
Syntagma in 14 Titles 153 n. 24
Syntagma kanonon of Meletius of
Antioch 153
Syriac

Acts of Ephesus (449), see Ephesus,
Second Council

area of earliest public use 49-51
canonical sources for Chalcedon 102
dated inscriptions (4th-6th cc.), table
of 51-2

dated manuscripts (5th-6th cc.), table
of 52-5

Ibas, Letter to Mari the Persian 59, 61,
63

language of Christian culture 49, 67

scripts: Estrangela 47, 52-3, 57; Serta
57

translations of Greek works: Acts of
Ephesus II 49, 57-61; Athanasius,
On the Incarnation 111; Proclus,
Tome to the Armenians
(florilegium) 125; Nestorius, Book
of Heraclides 48; Syntagma
kanonon 153

Termessus (Lycia), acclamations from
172-3

Thalassius of Caesarea in Cappadocia (at
Chalcedon) 185,190
Theodore I (pope 642-9) 134,141-2
Theodore Ascidas of Caesarea in
Cappadocia (at Constantinople 553)
127-9

Theodore of Claudiopolis (at Chalcedon)
184-6

Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428)
creed attributed to 126
and Council of Constantinople (553)
127-9

and Cyril of Alexandria 124-9
as ‘teacher’ of Nestorius 110
and ‘Three Chapters’ 64-7,123-5,
127-9

Theodore Spoudaeus, author of

Commemoratio, and Pope Martin 143
Theodore! of Cyrrhus

at Chalcedon 79 and nn. 33 and 34, 83,
85,100,120^, 180-1,190-1
and Dioscorus 14 n. 18
and Ephesus II 45, 62-3, 71
In Defence of Diodore and Theodore
126

and Nestorius 15, 85,113
and ‘Three Chapters’ 64-7,123-4
Theodosian Code

acclamations of senate at issue of 171
Theodosius I (emperor 379-95)
and status of Constantinople 151
and Theodore of Mopsuestia 126
Theodosius II (emperor 408-50)
acts of Ephesus I sent to 32, 35
and Ephesus II 45, 56, 58, 60-1, 63, 72
and Theodore of Mopsuestia 126-8
Theodosius of Alexandria and the
‘Theodosians’ 66,108
Theodosius of Caesarea in Bithynia
and Maximus the Confessor 139,143

INDEX

205

Theodosius, monk, usurping bishop of
Jerusalem (451) 187
Theodulus of Tesila (at Ephesus II) 192
theopaschism 113,183
see also Trisagion

Theopemptus of Cabasa (at Ephesus II)
191-2

Theotokos (Mother of God) 57, 70,113
‘Three Chapters’ controversy 64-7, 85,
87-9,123-4,127-9,186
Timothy Aelurus 183
Toledo, Third Council of (589) 139
Trinity, Holy

subscribed Dioscorus’ condemnation
101

Trisagion (Thrice-Holy Hymn) 107-8,163
Trullanum, in Trullo, see Quinisext
Council

Twelve Chapters, see Cyril of Alexandria,
Third Letter to Nestorius 113
Typos (648) 134

Uranius of Hemerium (at Ephesus II)
59-60,191

Valentinian III (western emperor 425-
55) 56, 72

Veronicianus, secretary of the sacred
consistory, at Chalcedon 150
Victor of Carthage (fl. 650) 142
Vigilius (pope 537-55) 121

Wessel, Susan 114 and n. 23,130 and n.
40

Whitby, Mary 6
Whitby, Michael 5
Wickham, Lionel 111-12

Zachariah, church historian 182
Zeno (emperor 474-91), see Henotikon
Zeno of Rhinocolura (at Ephesus II) 191
Zizoulas, John 22 n. 31

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